As senior member of the state agency that regulates Georgia's used car dealers, Donny Riner has an observation after years of reviewing consumer complaints: It's probably the consumer's fault.

"The consumer is a lot to blame for what goes on," said Riner, who, in addition to his role protecting the public, is in the car business. "The consumer is a lot to blame, for buying cars they shouldn't be buying, for not doing their homework."

RICH ADDICKS / AJC (ENLARGE)
When Dave Kidney bought this 1992 Infiniti, it broke down 15 miles after he left the lot. Kidney picketed the dealer but still has a car that doesn't run. The dealer said his repairs and other efforts to resolve Kidney's complaints exceeded requirements of the law.
T. LEVETTE BAGWELL / Staff (ENLARGE)
Unhappy car buyers are often to blame 'for not doing their homework,' says Donny Riner (left) of the state's used car board. He and Jeff Wilkinson are two of its industry representatives.
RICH ADDICKS / Staff (ENLARGE)
His agency's focus on false advertising got the industry's attention, says Joseph Doyle, head of the Governor's Office of Consumer Affairs.
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TELL US • What's been your experience? CAR-BUYING FYI • Tips when buying • A resource list • Actions taken by the used car board THE SERIES SO FAR The Atlanta Journal-Constitution in January kicked off "Borrower Beware," a series examining lending and consumer issues in Georgia. Buy an 11-by-17 reprint of the original special report published Jan. 30-Feb. 2 for $7.95, including shipping and handling, plus tax. Order online at ajc.com/info or call The Stacks at 404-526-2610. • Harsh lending laws fail consumers: Founded 273 years ago as a debtors' colony, Georgia is perhaps the least forgiving state in the nation for people who owe money. Of the 100 counties nationally with the highest rates of personal bankruptcy filings, 45 are in Georgia. (Jan. 30, 2005) • Swift foreclosures dash American dream: Georgia professes to support the American ideal of homeownership, but no state does less to protect homeowners hit by hard times. (Jan. 30, 2005) • Cost and risks are ultrahigh for car title loans: Georgia was the birthplace of car title lending. State law allows car title lenders to charge 25 percent interest a month, which works out to an annual rate of 300 percent. (Jan. 31, 2005) • Small-loan costs among highest in the U.S.: Consumers who resort to borrowing from the state's storefront small-loan companies pay dearly – mostly through insurance and other extras that push the cost of lending into the triple digits. (Feb. 1, 2005) • Mixing business and politics: An insurer's hunting preserve serves as a tool to build political support and a solid business. (Feb. 2, 2005) • Consumer office gets heat: An official says a top aide to Gov. Sonny Perdue tried to halt an investigation of an auto dealer. (March 27, 2005) • Tax loans: quick cash, steep price. Tax prep firms find a way around state interest limits. (April 3, 2005)

Car buyers who feel cheated may expect to find an ally when they call state regulators. They shouldn't.

In fact, the two state agencies charged with looking out for consumers who buy more than 1 million cars a year provide little relief and often seem sympathetic to the dealers they police.

The state's used car board, responsible for licensing and overseeing independent used car dealers, operates with a constant backlog of complaints and maintains a narrow investigatory focus. And the board, on which Riner has served for 15 years, has no authority over new car dealers who also sell used cars.

At the other state agency — the Governor's Office of Consumer Affairs — auto-related problems are the leading topic of complaints, numbering more than 8,000 in the past fiscal year.

Yet the agency focuses its resources on one deceptive practice by auto dealers — false advertising — and often seems confused about its authority to investigate other complaints.

"Consumers, we don't really have a say in this state," said Dave Kidney, 27, who searched in vain for a government agency to help him after the used car he bought from a Cobb County dealer broke down 15 miles after he left the lot.

Kidney decided he had just one recourse: a lawn chair and a picket sign positioned just outside the dealership that sold him the Infiniti Q45.

Donny Riner runs a Middle Georgia auto auction where used car dealers line up every week to buy the latest inventory for their lots.

The 52-year-old Swainsboro businessman is a fan of the used car industry and has served twice as president of the Georgia Independent Automobile Dealers Association, the trade group representing used car dealers.

Those ties do not disqualify Riner from a seat on the state's used car board, the entity charged with protecting consumers against unscrupulous dealers. In Georgia, they help him.

State law mandates that five of the nine members of the board — created by the General Assembly in 1958 — be used car dealers themselves or have direct ties to the industry.

But Riner said the public should be confident that its interests are being served.

"We have the most consumer-minded, consumer-oriented board that I have ever seen," said Riner, who was appointed to the board in 1990 by then-Gov. Joe Frank Harris. "Our board is very, very tough on dealers."

For years, Riner has served as the board's "cognizant," the member charged with reading and evaluating complaints against dealers for merit before presenting them to the full board.

Riner believes that consumers create a lot of their own problems and that dealers often are unfairly maligned. "People try to paint used car dealers as a bunch of crooked guys," he said. "The crooked people out there, most of the time, is John Q. Public."

It is difficult to determine how well the used car board polices the state's independent used car dealers, since it is impossible to compare the consumer complaints the board receives with the actions it takes.

Georgia law cloaks in secrecy many of the activities of the board. Its complaints are confidential. So are its investigative files. Only official board sanctions are revealed to the public — and even those can be kept confidential if the board so chooses.

Even the deliberations at the board's public meetings, conducted every other month in Macon, often take place in private. More than three hours of its 41/2-hour July session occurred behind closed doors.

The confidentiality provisions were created by the General Assembly and apply to all 34 licensing boards administered by the Georgia secretary of state's office. Members of the used car board are comfortable with the confidentiality afforded dealers. "Everybody's business don't need to be talked about in the street," Riner said.

But Riner acknowledges that the board is hamstrung to do all that needs to be done to protect consumers. It has the equivalent of 3.4 full-time inspectors to keep tabs on 5,100 licensed dealers. The board had a backlog of 89 complaints awaiting inspection or investigation as of June 15, the most recent data available.

The board does routinely fine dealers when an inspection identifies a violation, according to an Atlanta Journal-Constitution review of its public sanctions. Between 2003 and early 2005, the board issued 155 disciplinary actions against licensed dealers — almost all involving fines. License suspensions or revocations were rare, but the typical fine was about $1,000.

The board negotiated 59 cease-and-desist orders with dealers operating without a license. Riner contends that unlicensed dealers create more problems for consumers than the licensed dealers.

State law gives the board authority to investigate and punish a wide range of practices considered deceptive, including a dealer who makes false promises.

But the board focuses most of its attention on holding dealers accountable on several key and more cut-and-dried matters: issuing paperwork so consumers can get their tags and titles, and making sure that federally required "Buyers Guides" are posted on all vehicles on the lot. The guides spell out whether a vehicle is being sold with or without a warranty.

In 1987, the Georgia Department of Audits questioned the need for the board's existence, saying the board didn't do enough to protect the public.

It recommended that new car dealers selling used cars be brought under the board's purview and that the board address widespread deceptive practices and consumer dissatisfaction associated with used vehicles.

The General Assembly decided to keep the board in place and rejected the idea that new car dealers be regulated by the board. Little has changed in the 18 years since the audit was filed.

Riner said the board has tried repeatedly to persuade lawmakers to appropriate money to hire more inspectors. Its attempts have been largely unsuccessful. "The problem is not the dealer," Riner said. "The problem is our elected officials who wouldn't allocate the money to do the job that needs to be done."

Low-key approach

Shortly after the General Assembly created it in 1975, the Governor's Office of Consumer Affairs became a thorn in the side of the state's auto industry.

Tim Ryles — who was appointed by then-Gov. George Busbee as the agency's first chief and who later served a term as the state's insurance commissioner — aggressively took on car dealerships and mechanics with lawsuits and public campaigns in print and on television.

But the agency has mellowed considerably in recent years.

In an interview with the Journal-Constitution shortly before his death last year, Busbee lamented changes at the office.

"I think they have decimated it," said Busbee, who strongly stood by Ryles when the business community complained about his tactics. "I don't think it is as active as when I had it."

Today, Joseph Doyle heads the agency from its offices across the street from the Capitol. A former retailing entrepreneur with an accounting background, Doyle, 57, owned After Hours Formalwear before selling it in 2001.

In his 21 months at Consumer Affairs, Doyle, who is reserved and camera-shy and typically relies on his staff to interact with the public, has viewed himself more as an administrator than as a crusader for consumers. He applauds Gov. Sonny Perdue's mandate to do more with fewer taxpayer dollars.

"I am a results-oriented manager who is committed to protecting the citizens of the state and best using the resources we have," said Doyle.

He said complaints against auto dealers continue to be a clear priority of the agency. "It affects virtually everybody over 16 years old in the state of Georgia," he said.

It is not a very visible priority.

The agency rarely issues press releases when it sanctions dealers, an approach designed to encourage businesses to comply with the law without embarrassing them.

"Sometimes there are honest mistakes," Doyle said. "We are not trying to crucify businesses that make honest mistakes."

The agency's low-key approach leaves many car owners — who accounted for nearly one-third of the agency's 26,550 complaints last fiscal year — in the dark about whom the agency has put on notice for deceptive practices.

Many of the consumers who complain to Consumer Affairs get no relief for their specific problems.

Although the agency sometimes serves as an informal mediator to resolve individual complaints, Doyle said it is charged, primarily, at looking for patterns of deception by merchants. "We're not in a position to be handling every single citizen's complaint," he said.

Like the used car board, Consumer Affairs has the authority to pursue a wide range of deceptive acts. But the agency focuses most of its resources on dealers who lure customers through false advertisements. "That's where the laws really direct us to focus," Doyle said.

Even in those cases, the agency seems to tolerate multiple offenses before imposing fines.

The Journal-Constitution reviewed 91 letters of understanding the agency has entered into with dealers and a marketing company since January 2004. The letters, signed by dealers promising to stop certain practices, are issued after a verbal warning from Consumer Affairs goes unheeded. Only three of the 91 cases prompted fines. Some dealers simply ignored the agency's letters informing them of violations, with no resulting penalty.

Through more formal proceedings, the agency has also negotiated fines in 12 other false advertising cases involving car sales since January 2004.

One of the cases involved four dealerships — owned by Columbus-based Bill Heard Enterprises, Georgia's largest car dealer — which shared a record fine of $188,000. In 2003, Bill Heard dealerships paid $84,000 to settle a similar case. The dealerships admitted no wrongdoing in either case.

Doyle pointed to the fines against Heard as evidence of the agency's effectiveness in combating false advertising. "It got the attention statewide of that whole industry – very immediately," he said.

The agency's sanctions followed years of complaints from consumers and other dealers to Consumer Affairs, as well as years of warnings from the agency to the dealership.

The agency also pointed to efforts to help consumers who did business with car dealerships that failed to pay off loans on trade-ins and transfer titles for new vehicles.

Almost a year ago, the agency negotiated two major settlements for customers of dealerships in South Georgia and metro Atlanta. But only the customers of Kia of Waycross, Kia of Douglas and Waycross Mitsubishi have received restitution so far. Restitution for customers of the defunct Metro Dodge in Snellville depends on whether any money can be collected to repay victims.

Gary Leshaw, a Decatur lawyer who represents consumers in the Metro Dodge case, said the agreement hasn't been a success for his clients. None has collected any money and some will never be fully compensated for their losses, Leshaw said. He said the agency should have pursued the case more aggressively in court.

"When dealing with real consumer fraud — and I think this case points it out — they just are not highly effective at what they do," Leshaw said.

Getting a clear answer about what Consumer Affairs can take on, under the law, can be confusing — even in cases that make up some of the most common complaints made by consumers.

Until recently, the agency sent out letters telling consumers that it lacked jurisdiction to pursue cases involving "spot delivery."

Spot delivery is a common sales practice in which a consumer takes possession of a car after the deal has been negotiated, but before the financing has been finalized. Once the transaction is complete, consumers can find themselves facing higher payments or other less favorable terms than they thought they were getting.

After the Journal-Constitution raised questions about the agency's claim, officials at Consumer Affairs backpedaled, saying it did, in fact, have the jurisdiction to take on spot delivery cases, if there was a pattern of deception associated with the practice.

But in a recent interview, Doyle said he wasn't so sure it did. "I don't see how we could do anything except talk to people," he said.

'Weren't helpful at all'

In January, Dave Kidney pulled off the lot of Sapna Auto Sales in Marietta in a 1992 black Infiniti Q45. The Smyrna resident was proud of his new purchase and on his way to show it to his girlfriend.

Kidney was tooling along on I-285 when smoke started billowing from beneath the hood. He got to the shoulder before the engine died.

That was the beginning of an odyssey that has left Kidney questioning his decision to move from New York to a state with so few consumer protections.

By his own admission, Kidney didn't thoroughly check out the $3,250 car, which he bought "as is," meaning without any kind of warranty. But he said that's because the dealer promised to take care of him should something go wrong.

Sapna worked on the car several times after that and said it had been fixed. But it kept breaking down. Kidney said he no longer trusted the dealer to repair the vehicle.

Sapna's president, Jay Patel, said he went out of his way to help Kidney. He even offered to split the cost of replacing the engine on the vehicle. "I am being as fair as I can," Patel said. "If I wanted to be like other dealers, I would've said, 'Look, you bought the car 'as is.' I'm sorry.' "

Today, the Infiniti sits outside Kidney's apartment, where it's been an immovable fixture for months. Kidney, a cashier at Home Depot, has been using his girlfriend's car. He said he can't afford to get his car fixed. But he is continuing to make payments on the Infiniti — he didn't want to ruin his credit.

He wonders whether he got taken: A report from Carfax, a company that tracks vehicle histories, shows that the miles on the Infiniti may have exceeded 200,000, even though the bill of sale puts the mileage at 111,783.

Sapna's Patel presented an invoice that showed the car had the lower mileage when he bought it from an auto auction. It is unclear when or if a rollback occurred, which would constitute a federal and state offense.

No one in state government seems too interested in Kidney's predicament.

Shortly after the car broke down, he called the Governor's Office of Consumer Affairs. "They didn't listen to two questions — they weren't helpful at all," Kidney said.

At a minimum, Kidney said, the office could have heard him out. "They are being funded to do something, I guess," he said, "even if it's just to hang on the phone and listen." Instead, the office referred him to the used car board.

He spoke to the board's chairwoman, Diana Waldrop, who was sympathetic to his plight. But since he bought the car "as is," she said, there was nothing the board could do.

In the end, Kidney decided that the only thing he could do was to try to warn others: He bought a piece of poster board and crafted a picket sign. And he set up a lawn chair in front of Sapna, a small lot on a busy street near the Big Chicken. He advised passers-by to enter at their own risk.

Meanwhile, he's paying for a car that doesn't run.

"Hey," Kidney said, "I guess that's just part of living in Georgia."

Staff writer Alan Judd contributed to this article. Carrie Teegardin can be contacted at cteegardin@ajc.com, Ann Hardie at ahardie@ajc.com, and Alan Judd at ajudd@ajc.com.