Certification Fees Nissan Said Not to Charge: The Manchester City Nissan Case

The Federal Trade Commission and the State of Connecticut reached settlements in September 2025 with two former sales managers at Manchester City Nissan, resolving claims tied to a January 2024 lawsuit alleging the Connecticut dealership systematically deceived car buyers about certification fees, add-on products, and government charges.DOCUMENTED

The stipulated court orders impose permanent injunctions against the two sales managers, Chmielinski and Mojica, along with monetary judgments and civil penalty provisions, extending individual accountability beyond the dealership entity originally named in the case.DOCUMENTED

The original allegations

According to the complaint filed jointly by the FTC and Connecticut in January 2024, Manchester City Nissan routinely added certification fees to the price of used vehicles, charges that ranged anywhere from hundreds to thousands of dollars beyond the car's negotiated price. The complaint alleges these certification fees violated manufacturer Nissan's own rules, which prohibit dealers from charging consumers separately for the certification process on certified pre-owned vehicles.DOCUMENTED

Beyond the certification fees, the complaint alleges the dealership charged buyers for add-on products and government fees under circumstances the FTC characterized as deceptive: some buyers were charged for products they had explicitly told the dealership they did not want, others were never informed the charges existed at all, and still others were, according to the complaint, tricked into agreeing to the charges through misleading sales tactics.DOCUMENTED

Connecticut's role in the case

"We allege that Manchester City Nissan repeatedly deceived consumers by charging junk fees and inflating state fees, all in violation of the law," Connecticut Attorney General William Tong said when the original complaint was filed. The FTC brought its claims under Section 5(a) of the FTC Act, which prohibits unfair or deceptive acts or practices, while Connecticut pursued parallel claims under its own state Unfair Trade Practices Act, giving the case both federal and state enforcement tracks running in parallel.DOCUMENTED

Individual accountability for sales managers

The September 2025 settlements specifically resolved claims against two individual sales managers, Chmielinski and Mojica, rather than the dealership entity or its owner. The stipulated court orders impose permanent injunctions barring the two from future violations of federal or state consumer protection law, along with monetary judgments and civil penalty provisions. Exact dollar figures tied to the individual managers were not disclosed in public summaries of the settlements, though the orders are enforceable in federal court.DOCUMENTED

The agreements do not constitute an admission of wrongdoing by either manager but resolve the allegations against them without further litigation, following a pattern common in FTC auto-dealer cases where the agency pursues both the dealership as a corporate entity and the individual employees found to have directed or carried out the deceptive practices at issue.DOCUMENTED

Part of a sustained federal crackdown on auto junk fees

The Manchester City Nissan case is one of a lengthy series of FTC actions against auto dealerships over junk fees and deceptive add-on charges in recent years, following similar cases against dealer groups including Passport Automotive Group, Rhinelander Auto Center, Napleton Auto, Coulter Motor Company, Leader Automotive Group, Lindsay Automotive Group, and online used-car retailer Vroom. The FTC's 2023 CARS Rule, aimed specifically at combating bait-and-switch pricing and illegal add-on charges in vehicle shopping, has provided the regulatory backbone for this sustained wave of dealer-specific enforcement, even though the rule's own effective date was later paused amid industry litigation.DOCUMENTED

Taken together, these cases reflect a consistent enforcement pattern across the auto retail sector: dealerships that advertise or negotiate one price, then add certification fees, add-on products, or government charges the buyer did not clearly agree to, expose themselves to both FTC and state-level liability, and increasingly, individual employees involved in carrying out those practices face their own separate legal exposure distinct from the dealership's corporate liability.

The decision to pursue individual sales managers separately from the dealership entity reflects a broader pattern in the FTC's recent auto-dealer enforcement: by extending personal liability to the employees who directly interacted with consumers and structured the disputed charges, the agency creates a deterrent that operates independently of whatever happens to the dealership itself, including potential ownership changes, bankruptcy, or rebranding that might otherwise limit the practical reach of a judgment against the corporate entity alone.REVIEWED

Because Nissan's own manufacturer rules explicitly prohibited the certification fees at the center of the complaint, the case also illustrates a distinct enforcement angle beyond ordinary undisclosed-fee claims: a dealership charging fees its own manufacturer has specifically barred exposes both the dealership and, as this case shows, individual managers who implemented the practice to liability extending beyond general consumer-protection law into a violation of the dealer's own franchise obligations to the manufacturer.REVIEWED

The case also illustrates the layered nature of auto-dealer regulatory exposure more broadly: a single set of deceptive practices can trigger simultaneous liability under federal FTC Act provisions, state unfair-trade-practices statutes, and separately, obligations owed to the vehicle manufacturer under the dealer's own franchise agreement, meaning a dealership found to have violated consumer-protection law in this manner may also face manufacturer-level consequences entirely apart from whatever a regulator or court ultimately orders.REVIEWED

For consumers shopping for a certified pre-owned vehicle at any dealership, the case is a reminder that manufacturer certification programs typically come with specific rules governing what a dealer can and cannot separately charge for the certification process itself, information a buyer can verify directly with the manufacturer rather than relying solely on the figures presented at the dealership's own finance desk.REVIEWED

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