St. Petersburg Times business reporter Robert Trigaux wrote an interesting column in the October 5, 2008, Sunday paper about hard times for US Car Dealers.
Louis Green
The St. Petersburg Times reported in its Friday, August 22, 2008 edition:
U.S. Rep. Vern Buchanan is one of the richest men in Congress thanks in part to his car dealerships.
But those businesses have also made the Sarasota Republican the
target of lawsuits in his own county. Ex-employees allege that his
dealerships fabricated tax returns, falsified incomes to get loan
applications approved and “powerbooked” — faked options to pump up the
sales price.The congressman’s dealership bilked customers,
employees and even Ford Motor Co. in a relentless drive to sell cars,
according to the suit filed Aug. 13 in Pinellas-Pasco Circuit Court.
