Red Rock Nissan at 2582 Highway 6 & 50 in Grand Junction
The Red Rock Auto Group seems to be starting to get the message about the financial hardship they’ve been causing people by defrauding customers and carrying out business in bad faith.
This week Red Rock Nissan went out of their way to help “the Andersons” (not their real name), a struggling young couple with three kids, two of whom are special needs kids, who were recently featured in this blog as an example of the kind of bad deals people were unknowingly getting into at these dealerships.
Red Rock Nissan at 2582 Highway 6 & 50 in Grand Junction
Note: I am re-posting this article from last December, now that a second former Red Rock dealership financial manager, Matthew Morris, has been charged with criminal impersonation, forgery and identity theft. This article contains information from a former Red Rock financial manager about how Red Rock allegedly (and routinely) defrauded customers as well as lenders (banks and credit unions). The article got little notice at the time I posted it, but it’s even more relevant now that criminal charges have been brought against a second Red Rock employee, who has implicated upper management in these activities..
Yet another former employee of a Red Rock auto dealership has contacted AnneLandmanBlog wanting to unload about what they experienced while working for Red Rock, and wanting others to know how business is done at these dealerships. This person has more detailed knowledge about financing of vehicle deals. Their name is withheld at their request. I asked this person follow-up questions based on information provided by a previous Red Rock employee who came forward and told about the illegal acts allegedly taking place at the dealerships, like falsifying customers’ financial information to lenders, misuse of digital signatures, forging of signatures, and more. This new person has even more detailed insight into these dealerships, the things they do to customers and banks, and how and why Red Rock dealerships operate so differently from other dealerships in town and around the country.
A former Red Rock auto dealership employee contacted AnneLandmanBlog wanting to unload about what he experienced in the years he worked for the dealership. He asked to remain anonymous, so his name is withheld. He said he was “ashamed” about having worked for the dealership and wanted to do whatever he could do to help people who fell victim to these scams.
Following are excerpts of our conversation, edited slightly for clarity:
Lyn M. says this screen shot “is all we know about the loan” she and her husband got from Red Rock Nissan in Grand Junction. They went to Red Rock to buy a car advertised on the dealership’s website at $17,000. Without knowing it, they came out with a loan for $30,000 at an interest rate of 12.49%, far above what they could afford.
Lyn Anderson and her husband Jim (not their real names) thought they should trade in their older Ford pickup and get a slightly newer, more family-friendly vehicle, so they went online to see what was available locally.
Little did they know what they were getting themselves into.
Red Rock GMC contract with unauthorized $4,995 charge for “Portfolio” (an extended warranty the customer wasn’t made aware of), “Worry Free Maintenance” that the customer was told would give him three “free oil changes,” and a $2,500 charge for “Resistall” coating, a treatment that ruined the glass on his truck. Red Rock dealerships are affiliated with the Tim Dahle Auto Group dealerships out of Utah.
Last spring, Daniel Macias (not his real name) went to the Red Rock GMC dealership on First Street to buy a used Chevy Silverado pickup truck. Like other Grand Junction Red Rock dealership patrons, he was unaware of the trap he was walking into.
Red Rock Nissan at 2582 Highway 6 & 50 in Grand Junction
People who patronized Grand Junction Red Rock dealerships are warning others shopping for vehicles locally that the dealerships used shady techniques to cheat them, or attempt to cheat them, out of thousands of dollars without their knowing.
Did you buy a vehicle from a local dealership only to find out later you were defrauded in some way? Can’t afford an attorney to help?
Fortunately, there’s another, completely unpublicized way car buyers can get compensation for a fraudulent deal committed by a dealership.
Surety bonds
Colorado law requires every licensed motor vehicle dealer to carry a surety bond. The bond is meant to protect customers from fraudulent business practices.
A surety bond guarantees financial compensation to customers who incur monetary loss as a result of an auto dealer’s fraud, negligence or failure to comply with all of Colorado’s laws and ethical guidelines that govern the sale of vehicles. In order to get a dealer’s license from the state, all dealerships must purchase a surety bond to the amount of $50,000. Individual salespeople must also be bonded, to the amount of $15,000.
If you have evidence that a dealership committed fraud in your deal, for example if you found forged signatures on contracts or agreements, found extra charges were added were to your contract without your knowledge, the dealership submitted false information about your finances and the vehicle you were buying to lenders on your credit application (like inflating your gross salary or the length of time you’ve lived at your current residence, or claimed to lenders that your vehicle has fancier features like leather seats and a sunroof when it doesn’t), or if you were charged a higher interest rate than expected on your loan without your knowing, or if you were charged a higher price than the advertised price, or if the dealer told you had to buy additional products in order to buy the vehicle you wanted, or if the dealership submitted fake utility bills in your name to lenders, you can make a claim against the dealership’s surety bond to recoup the loss you incurred from the fraud.
Above is an excerpt from a 2023 lawsuit (pdf) brought by a Grand Junction couple against Red Rock Auto/Red Rock Hyundai describing how they discovered Red Rock Hyundai had fabricated XCel and AT&T bills in their names to include with the credit application for a loan on their vehicle. Neither one of the couple has an AT&T account.
How to file a claim against a dealership’s surety bond:
1) Identify the insurer that sold the dealer the bond**,
2) Contact the insurer and ask them to tell you their procedure for filing a claim,
3) Gather evidence of the fraud, for example the documents from your sale, your credit application, dates and times the fraud happened, the names of employees involved, copies of your signature if you think your signature was forged, a full description of what happened, the amount of money you are out because of the deal and the basis for the figure, and submit it all to the insurer with a letter saying “Dealership [fill in name]” defrauded you and you want to make a claim against the dealership’s surety bond.
The insurer will investigate your claim and pay you after they verify the facts of the case.
**How do you find out which insurer holds a dealership’s surety bond?
It’s public information that’s buried on the Auto Industry Division’s website. Here’s how to find it:
Scroll down to the blue “Quick Links” bar and click on it for the drop-down menu.
Click on the link for”Active Facility License Listings.”
In the bulleted sentence right below the page title, click on the blue link for “Active License Lookup.”
In the Active License Lookup web form, click the blue link in the third bulleted sentence that says “Click here to search for a facility instead of a person.”
In the facility search form, type the name of the dealership. [Hint: For the best result, use broad search criteria. For example, if you’re looking for Red Rock Nissan, just type “Red Rock.” If you’re looking for Grand Valley Auto, just type “Grand Valley.”]
Mug shot of Tiffany Momilani Miller, former Red Rock GMC financial manager, who was arrested for forgery, criminal impersonation and identity theft last year
In the search result box, click on the blue name of the dealership.
Scroll down to the dealership’s “License Bond Information.” You’ll see the name of the company that holds the bond for the dealership, and the bond number, which is like an insurance policy number.
Put the name of the bond issuing company into a Google search to get the company’s contact information. Call the company and ask them to tell you their process to file a claim against a dealership’s surety bond.
Above is the page on the Colorado Department of Revenue’s Auto Industry website with the surety bond information for Red Rock Hyundai, naming the bond company and the bond number.
Surety bonds protect customers from financial losses they incur from doing business with an unscrupulous auto dealer. It’s free to file a claim against a dealer’s surety bond, so if you were defrauded in the course of buying a car, file a claim to get compensation for the fraudulent deal. The bond company will pay you and then seek reimbursement from the dealer.
Also…Report the fraud to law enforcement
Dealers that use fraudulent practices will continue doing so until they get caught and sent to jail, because they make a lot of money off such crimes.
dealership inside city limits, fill out the G.J.P.D.’s financial fraud packet, file it with the G.J.P.D., meet with a cop to explain how you were defrauded, and include a copy of your fraud packet with the documents you send to the surety bond company.
You can also report the crime to the Colorado state Attorney General as an automotive complaint and write reviews on sites like Google Reviews, Yelp, Cars.com, the Better Business Bureau, etc.
The more records you make of the crime and the more such crimes get reported, the better off everyone will be, and the easier it will be to make a solid case to the surety bond provider so you can get your money back. And it’s free to do all of this, except for the time it takes to do it.
Note that all of the crimes in the following video have been committed locally by a notorious auto dealer that has five stores in Grand Junction, so it pays to know how to make a claim against a dealer’s surety bond to get compensation for a financial rip off:
Award-winning, long time local news anchor Bernie Lange has left KKCO and will start working at KREX-TV Channel 5 on Monday, March 25 as the station’s main anchor for their 5:00, 6:00 and 10:00 p.m. newscasts. He has more than 20 years experience in broadcast journalism.
Two western slope residents purchased 2022 Hyundai Kona EVs around the same time last year. They both shopped at Red Rock Hyundai in Grand Junction. One ended up buying their car from Red Rock, while the other went to Red Rock first, felt uncomfortable, and ended up buying from Ralph Schomp Hyundai in Aurora, Colorado. Neither buyer left the western slope to complete their purchase or obtain their vehicles. The two report having had two vastly different experiences, as well as incurring vastly different total expenditures for their purchases.
Here is a side-by-side comparison of their buying experiences:
