FTC Settles Greenway Hidden-Fee Case, Drops Asbury Payment-Packing Complaint — Same Week

The Federal Trade Commission settled a deceptive-pricing case against Greenway Auto Group on October 8, 2026, and dismissed its payment-packing complaint against three Asbury Automotive dealerships on October 5 — two moves in opposite directions that together reveal the practical limits of the agency’s dealer enforcement push.

The Greenway case centered on a gap between advertised and transaction prices. The FTC alleged that in more than 90% of deals, Greenway customers paid an average of $3,350 above the advertised price, with the difference covered by administrative, dealer, delivery, and processing fees not included in listed prices. The agency also alleged Greenway sent mailers telling recipients they had won cash prizes redeemable at its dealerships — prizes the FTC says were not real.

The timing makes the Greenway complaint particularly pointed. Greenway was among 97 dealer groups the FTC warned in March 2026 over deceptive pricing practices. According to the complaint, Greenway responded by adding “price transparency” language to its website while continuing the same underlying pricing structure. The FTC treats that sequence as an aggravating factor, not a defense.

The settlement, filed in the Middle District of Florida on a 2-0 Commission vote, requires Greenway to make the total transaction price the most prominent figure in any advertisement, prohibits the prize mailers, and mandates five years of recordkeeping and compliance monitoring. Greenway neither admitted nor denied the allegations. No monetary penalty was disclosed in the order as reported.

The Asbury dismissal, filed three days earlier, ended differently and for different reasons. The complaint had targeted three David McDavid-branded dealerships in the Dallas-Fort Worth area — all Asbury-owned — along with a former general manager, alleging that monthly payments were deliberately inflated to conceal the cost of add-on products bundled into deals without clear disclosure. The complaint also alleged that Black and Latino buyers were systematically steered toward more expensive add-on packages.

Asbury contested the case aggressively. The company publicly called the allegations false, then filed suit in federal court challenging the constitutional structure of the FTC’s in-house administrative tribunal. That challenge succeeded in getting the administrative proceeding stayed pending an interlocutory appeal, producing a two-year standstill. The FTC ultimately moved to dismiss, stating it was “increasingly unlikely” the case would reach timely resolution and that the agency’s limited resources were better directed elsewhere. No relief went to any consumer.

In statements accompanying both actions, the FTC said it “remains committed to pursuing price transparency in the appropriate forum” — language that appears in connection with both the win and the loss, and that functions as a signal about where the agency now sees its enforcement lane.

The contrast between the two outcomes points to something operational rather than philosophical. Price-advertising cases — where the evidentiary record is largely a comparison between a website or mailer and a signed purchase agreement — are straightforward to build and difficult for a defendant to relitigate on the merits. Payment-packing cases, and especially ones that add a disparate-impact allegation, require proving intent, demonstrating a pattern across transactions, and surviving challenges to the forum itself. When a well-resourced defendant is willing to fight on procedural grounds long enough to exhaust the agency’s litigation budget, the case becomes a resource allocation problem regardless of its underlying merit.

For dealers, the Greenway settlement is a concrete enforcement benchmark: advertised price must match — or at minimum must not be systematically less than — the price appearing on the final contract, and the margin between the two cannot be papered over with boilerplate disclosures. The FTC’s March 2026 warning letters established that the agency was watching; the Greenway complaint establishes that continuing the practice after a warning will not improve a dealer’s position.

For lenders and compliance officers, the Asbury dismissal is not an all-clear on payment packing or fair-lending exposure. The FTC framed the dismissal as a resource decision, not a determination on the merits, and state attorneys general — who face different resource constraints and different procedural postures — retain authority to pursue the same conduct independently.