Categories: AAMCO TRANSMISSION franchiseALL POSTSAutomotive FranchisesFRANCHISE LAWSUITSJonathan Fortman

NATIONAL AAMCO DEALERS ASSOCIATION (NADA) Criticized for Doing Nada

The National AAMCO Dealers Association (NADA) was strongly criticized today as a “wolf in sheep’s clothing” by the attorney who recently filed a class-action lawsuit against AAMCO Transmissions and related companies.

Attorney Jonathan Fortman of Fortman Law published a scathing post that accusing the AAMCO dealer association of putting the interests of the much-criticized franchisor ahead of the well-being of the franchisees it is supposed to protect.

In his THE NATIONAL AAMCO DEALERS ASSOCIATION: Beware of the Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing, Fortman states that “NADA really does nothing to protect the dealers’ interests.”

In fact, the leader of NADA provided support to the franchisor in a recent NBC-DC investigative report, according to Fortman.

[Photo, left, Mike Ganjei, President, National AAMCO Dealers Association. Source: NADA website]

The NADA chief has been uncooperative with Fortman’s lawsuit investigation, and is suspected of having possibly helped coerce an AAMCO dealer from dropping out of the class-action suit.

Fortman contends: We have been told repeatedly by several sources that AAMCO is very lax with the fees owed by the NADA chief for his own shops.

Here’s the post that appears on the Fortman Law Blog:

THE NATIONAL AAMCO DEALERS ASSOCIATION: Beware of the Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing

We have recently filed suit against AAMCO Transmission, Inc. and its parent companies.

During our investigation, we discovered the existence of the National Aamco Dealers Association (NADA).

I thought, rather naively, that such an association would be on the side of the dealers in any disputes against the franchisor. However, as we explored the association in greater depth, what we found was astonishing.

Far from protecting the dealers, NADA really does nothing to protect the dealers’ interests. Sure, there are emails and letters in which NADA acknowledges the serious concerns raised by the AAMCO dealers. NADA claims it brought these issues to the franchisor. Back in 2011, NADA claimed that several of the issues were being addressed through the formation of “committees” to investigate the issues. However, here we are over two years later and not a single issue has been resolved.

In the meantime, dealers continue to fail and lose hundreds of thousands of dollars. To rub salt in the wounds, the leader of NADA, a fellow AAMCO dealer, was quoted in the NBC-DC investigative reports as a supporter of the franchisor. Keep in mind that the story done by NBC raised the exact same issues that were supposedly raised by NADA back in 2011.

The NADA leader also threatened one of our clients concerning late ad pool fees. This client had agreed to be a named class representative in the suit we just filed. On her behalf, we sent the NADA chief and the advertising agency a letter requesting copies of any agreements signed by our client. We never received a response. However, rather mysteriously, our client ceased all communication with us, refused to return phone calls, and failed to respond to emails. We can only assume that the NADA chief took some action to threaten our client to silence her or give her some other incentive not to cooperate.

We have been told repeatedly by several sources that AAMCO is very lax with the fees owed by the NADA chief for his own shops. With a friend like, that who needs enemies?

My advice to AAMCO dealers is to rip away the “sheep” exterior of NADA to expose the wolf.

Once that’s done, the AAMCO dealers need to form a dealers’ association that will truly protect their interests.