As the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau prepares its annual report to Congress, the agency wanted specifics of what compliance matters other federal regulators are involved with regarding non-bank entities, which can include franchised and independent dealerships.

The Federal Trade Commission, which has jurisdiction over dealers, shared what it had with the CFPB last week. But according to federal documents, the material wasn't everything the CFPB was seeking.

Included in the FTC's annual letter to the CFPB, officials recapped enforcement and related activities regarding the Truth in Lending Act (TILA), Consumer Leasing Act (CLA), Electronic Fund Transfer Act (EFTA), and Equal Credit Opportunity Act (ECOA).

The letter also addressed certain FTC initiatives regarding auto financing advertising, payday lending, mortgage lending advertising, mobile payments, and separate FTC staff comments filed with the CFPB on integrating TILA and Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act disclosures and on general purpose reloadable cards.

However, FTC Secretary Donald Clark pointed out what the agency couldn't provide to the CFPB.

"Your letter also asks for specific data regarding compliance examinations, including the extent of compliance, number of entities examined, and compliance challenges experienced by entities subject to the FTC's jurisdiction," Clark said.

"The commission does not conduct compliance examinations or collect compliance-related data concerning the non-bank entities within its jurisdiction. As a result, this letter does not provide information on compliance examinations," Clark went on to say.

While those compliance examinations weren't available from the FTC, Clark recapped plenty of activity the agency conducted last year in connection with vehicle financing at dealerships.

Last March, the FTC revealed steps aimed at cracking down at what officials described as false or exaggerated advertising, calling into question ads from a group of five dealerships around the country.

The FTC charged that the ads — which ran on the dealers' websites, as well as on sites such as YouTube.com — "deceived consumers into thinking  they would no longer be responsible for paying off the loan balance on their trade-in, even if it exceeded the trade-in's value."

"Instead, the dealers rolled the negative equity into the consumer's new vehicle loan or, in the case of one dealer, required consumers to pay it out of pocket," FTC officials continued.

Basically, the FTC contends that in these ads, the dealerships promised to pay off a consumer's trade-in no matter what the consumer owed on that particular unit.

The dealers named in the FTC's complaints included Billion Auto, Inc., in Sioux Falls, S.D.; Frank Myers AutoMaxx, LLC, in Winston-Salem, N.C.; Key Hyundai of Manchester, LLC and Hyundai of Milford LLC, in Vernon and Milford, Conn., respectively, and which advertise jointly; and Ramey Motors, Inc., in Princeton, W.Va.

All of those dealerships agreed to the FTC's orders that require them to stop running ads.

The FTC's letter to the CFPB also recapped how the agency reached a settlement with two California-based companies and their principals who allegedly took hundreds of thousands of dollars from consumers and banned them from marketing auto loan relief or any other type of debt relief to consumers.

The FTC filed charges against the companies — Kore Services, doing business as Auto Debt Consulting, and NAFSO VLM, doing business as Vehicle Loan Mod — and their principals last year.

The FTC alleged that the defendants promised to reduce consumers' monthly auto loan payments by 25 to 40 percent, for fees ranging from $350 to $799. The defendants offered a 100 percent money back guarantee.

According to the FTC, many consumers were told to stop making payments on their loans, which increased the risk that their vehicles would be repossessed. But once the up-front fees were collected, the agency said the defendants did not do anything to obtain the promised loan modifications. Consumers who tried to get refunds were denied. And some consumers' vehicles were repossessed by their finance companies.

The settlement bans the defendants from providing any type of debt relief service, prohibits them from making misrepresentations about any other product or service they market and requires them to support claims with competent and reliable evidence.

Clark's entire letter to the CFPB can be downloaded here.

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