Quebec is penalizing auto dealers for long-standing crimes

Last month, Quebec’s Office de la protection du consommateur (OPC) revoked a used car dealer’s operating licence. This is somewhat unusual as the consumers’ governmental agency does so, on average, only once a year. Perhaps the Office had little choice as it caught MF Auto rolling back an odometer more than 200,000 kilometres. The company and its president, Mohamad Fawaz, were fined more than $80,000.

Proving there’s more bite in the OPC’s bark, for the first time ever, the Office also temporarily suspended the licence of another used car dealer for “charging a higher price than advertised” (a malpractice widespread in La Belle Province, as you’ll read below).

These incidents are the tip of the iceberg: OPC is focusing more on the wrongdoings of Quebec’s auto dealers and levying much larger penalties. In its annual report to be released soon, OPC will unveil that in its last fiscal year ending on April 30th, it has won cases in court against Quebec auto dealers to the tune of $473,584. That’s a whopping 47% of all the fines handed out in the same period to all consumers’ industries which, I’ll remind you, includes construction, cell providers and household appliance retailers, as well as others.

And this isn’t just a bump in the road for Quebec’s auto retail sector. In the OPC’s last three fiscal years, of the $2.4 million penalties levied on offending merchants in all retail sectors, 58% ($1.4 million) were directed at 54 car dealers and 29 faux particuliers (that’s curbsiders to you and me, but that’s another story – for another day).

Quebec’s first licence suspension for illegal fees

Driving.ca analyzed all the car dealers’ cases brought to court by OPC since fall 2022, to discover that two-thirds of the penalized infractions were for charging higher prices than advertised. In adding “hidden” fees to the transaction, those merchants contravened to the 224c* article of the provincial Consumer Protection Act (CPA). That malpractice has become so widespread in Quebec that it was recently the topic of a mega-class action lawsuit targeting nearly 200 car dealers.

Not only was Auto Max listed among that class action, but last month, the used car dealer in Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu became the very first among its peers to have its licence suspended by OPC for 30 days.

Again, note that although charging a higher price than advertised is the most common breach committed to the CPA by used and new car dealers, never had the Office, until now, imposed a temporary halt of sales operations.

But the circumstances virtually demanded the suspension: Since 2021, Auto Max and its president, José Santos, were brought twice by POC in front of le tribunal, where they pleaded guilty for a total of $42,882 in fines. But despite repeated warnings and lawsuits (those initiated by OPC, but also some by consumers themselves), the Montreal Rive-Sud merchant didn’t stop its illegal commercial practices, says the OPC: “[It] continued to charge illegally fees ranging from $89.50 to $599… for detailing, documentation, financing or SAAQ transfer services.”

When suspending its licence, the judge accused Auto Max of “willful blindness,” adding: “Its carelessness and lack of rigor… testify to a lack of competence that cannot be tolerated on the part of a road vehicle dealer licensee.” Note that the suspension was lifted earlier this month.

* Quebec CPA, article 224c: No merchant, manufacturer or advertiser may, by any means whatever (…) charge, for goods or services, a higher price than that advertised. (…) The price advertised must include the total amount the consumer must pay for the goods or services (before taxes).

Like Auto Max, MF Auto was charging more than the advertised price. But the used car dealer, located at 12,040 Boulevard Laurentien, in Montreal, was also conducting other mischief. According to OPC investigations, it was refusing customers to have a used vehicle inspected by a third party; it was using non-conforming contracts; and most egregious of all, it was selling used vehicles with tampered odometers.

Last February, the company and its president, Fawaz, pleaded guilty to a total of 20 charges and fined a total of $80,394.

Note (in our chart below) that this is the second highest penalty ever served to a car dealer in the last three years.

When 200,000 km suddenly disappear from the odometer…

Despite all these warnings and admonitions to MF Auto, the OPC continued to receive consumer complaints “about the same breaches.” Hence the permanent cancellation of its dealer licence, effective May 22, 2025. It appears MF Auto had rolled back the miles on some 30 cars, in one case the vehicle’s odometer was rolled back 209,782 kilometres!

Believe it or not, this is not the largest “tampering” record in OPC’s history. For this, we have to go back two years ago, when the Office’s investigators uncovered that Liquidation Rive-Nord, a used car dealer (formerly) located, you won’t believe this, on 7 Crooks Street, in Grenville (Outaouais), sold 45 used vehicles with odometers rolled back up to 221,860 km. Liquidation Rive-Nord had its licence permanently revoked on January 5, 2024.

Stricter enforcement and penalties

Historically, new and used vehicles sales account for the most problematic commercial sector at OPC, bringing about a quarter of all the consumers’ complaints received. For years, the Automotive Protection Association (APA) has criticized the lack of severity in the fines levied on car dealers; its executive director George Iny kept repeating that the penalties (usually around $3,000) were too low to deter dealers from charging hidden fees and other abusive practices.

Or as Motor Mouth’s David Booth once said in his column:

A dealer selling 1,000 cars with an average 'illegal' markup of $500 is raking in a half-million annually, a figure that far outweighs the mere thousands that might be meted out as a penalty

 

But now, with stricter enforcement, the Office is definitively ramping up its investigations and its penalties. Have a look at the analysis chart (below) prepared by Driving; it lists all the car (and motorcycles) dealers’ cases brought to court by OPC since the fall of 2022, 54 in total.

A record fine – $96,845 levied in 2023 – was imposed on Méga Moteurs A.D., a used car dealer from Laval that pleaded guilty to charging illegal fees. In all, a dozen of car dealers have been sentenced to pay, altogether, more than half a million dollars. More companies may join this list, as some cases are still pending in court.

What can you do if you suspect hidden auto fees?

Do you suspect hidden fees are (or have been) added to your contract when buying or leasing a vehicle? Were you (or have you been) forced to purchase “options” you didn’t want: a special set of wheels or an extended warranty? Do you suspect that the used car you bought had its odometer rolled back? If you suffered — or are currently undergoing — any of these injustices, you are encouraged to contact the OPC by phone (1-888-OPC-ALLO) and to file a complaint at this link.

You’ll be invited to share invoices, contract, warranty documents, written evaluation – any document relevant to your situation. The OPC encourages you to do so: “The information you send us through a complaint is very valuable,” says the agency’s website, so it can be used to “identify which merchants who do not comply with the law.”

And, of course, as is becoming refreshingly common, to really penalize them.