From AZstarnet.com:

It’s hard to determine how long state agencies might have known about the misdeeds at Wildcat Mitsubishi.

There’s no oversight agency specifically for car dealers. And privacy rules surrounding the complaint process prevent many state agencies from being able to say whether a business is even under investigation.

Agencies say they share complaints with each other, but each seems to do its work purely within its own purview, making it impossible to discover just how egregiously a certain business acts until the evidence is overwhelming on all fronts.

“We don’t regulate businesses as a general rule. We wait to see if a fraud is committed and then we take action,” state Attorney General Terry Goddard said.

He said auto dealers tend to be close to the top or at the very top of the list of businesses his office watches for fraud because his staff fields so many complaints about the industry.

The office can charge up to $10,000 per violation against the Consumer Fraud Act. But the act also is the reason the office can’t confirm if a business is under scrutiny.

Read the Rest…