Where auto dealers track FTC and CFPB actions, and what to do with them

In short: Enforcement against dealers arrives through a handful of official channels. Watch five sources, read each action for the conduct and the remedy, and log one task per action in your Safeguards file. Twenty minutes a month covers it.

Most dealers hear about enforcement from a vendor email or a headline weeks after the fact. The sources below are where the actions are published first, by the agencies themselves, and each one has a free email alert. Our Enforcement Watch page logs the actions that touch dealers as they are announced, with the source link for each.

The five sources

1. FTC press releases and the Cases and Proceedings library. Every FTC complaint, consent order and policy statement is posted at ftc.gov the day it is announced. The press release gives the plain-English version; the case page carries the complaint and the order, which is where the actual conduct and the required fixes are spelled out. The FTC's email subscriptions let you choose "Automobiles" as a topic.

2. The Federal Register. Rules, rule withdrawals, policy statements and comment requests from the FTC and CFPB are published here, with the effective date on the first page. The CARS Rule withdrawal in February 2026 and the CFPB's Regulation B final rule in April 2026 both appeared here before most coverage. Federalregister.gov offers saved searches by agency.

3. CFPB newsroom and enforcement actions. The CFPB publishes enforcement actions, consent orders, interpretive rules and its annual fair lending report. Dealers are mostly outside its direct reach, but its rules on Regulation B, the FCRA and adverse action apply to the financing dealers arrange, and its interpretive rules change what lenders expect from you.

4. Your state attorney general and DMV. State AGs bring the dealer cases that never reach Washington, and state DMVs publish the industry memos that explain new state law. California's DMV memo on the CARS Act in September 2026 was the clearest explanation of that law anywhere. Every AG has a press-release feed; most have an email list.

5. Your dealer association's regulatory bulletins. NADA and your state association summarize the federal and state actions that matter to members and usually add a compliance note. They are a digest, not a primary source, so follow the link to the agency document before you act.

How to read an enforcement action in five minutes

• Who was the respondent? A dealer, a lender, a software vendor or a data broker. A case against a vendor still tells you what the agency expects of the dealers who used it.
• What was the conduct? Advertised prices that left out mandatory fees, add-ons the customer did not agree to, customer data left exposed, identity-theft records not provided. The conduct is the part you check against your own store.
• What was the remedy? A civil penalty, consumer redress, or a consent order that lists required practices. Order terms are the regulator's own checklist: when the FTC requires a dealer to disclose the total price as the most prominent figure and to get express, informed consent for every charge, that is the standard it will apply next time.
• Was there a ruling on the merits? A dismissal for procedural reasons, as in the Asbury matter in October 2026, is not a finding that the conduct was lawful.
• What rule was cited? Section 5 of the FTC Act, the Safeguards Rule, the Red Flags Rule, ECOA and Regulation B, the FCRA, or state law. The rule tells you which part of your program to open.

Turn each action into one task

Log the action in your Safeguards file with the date, the source link and one line on why it matters at your store. Then assign one task: review the price disclosures on your website, re-run the add-on consent step with F&I, confirm the vendor contract has the security language, or send the relevant training module to the floor. Date the task and close it in writing. A year of those entries is the "monitoring" an examiner asks about, and it shows the program is alive.

Practical takeaways

1. Subscribe to the FTC's automobile topic, your state AG's press releases and the Federal Register's FTC and CFPB feeds. Three emails cover most of it.
2. Put a 20-minute monthly review on the Qualified Individual's calendar. Read what arrived, log it, assign the task.
3. Keep a one-page log: date, agency, respondent, conduct, remedy, our task, done date.
4. When an order lists required practices, compare them line by line with your own. The order is the checklist.
5. Share the one-line summary with the sales and F&I floor when the conduct is something they do every day.

This explainer is general information, not legal advice. Talk to your counsel about how any action applies to your store.

Sources: FTC, News and Events; FTC, Cases and Proceedings; Federal Register; CFPB, Newsroom; California DMV, OLIN 2026-10.

About the author

Written by the DealSafe team. DealSafe is the dealer compliance program founded by Dallas Tyrrell and run on the founder's own rooftops at Tyrrell Auto Centers, Wyoming's oldest dealership group. Questions and corrections: support@dealsafe.com.

See also

Enforcement Watch · FTC Safeguards Rule Checklist for Auto Dealers · FTC Safeguards Rule program for dealers · All guides and news