What is UDAP and can I sue the Dealer Who Sold Me the Car?

What is a UDAP violation?

Is it covered by the Consumer Fraud Act?

The term UDAP is an acronym for Unfair Deceptive Acts and Practices. The prohibition of Unfair Deceptive Acts and Practices would be covered by the New Jersey Consumer Fraud Act. The New Jersey Fraud Act provides wide-ranging regulation applying to the sale and attempted sale of products and services. It is considered one of the most aggressive consumer statutes in the entire country and has been used in New Jersey vigorously against many types of businesses, including car dealerships, home improvement businesses, realtors, real estate agents, banks, financial companies and many others. The New Jersey Consumer Fraud Act is one of the most effective consumer laws in the country and is built to protect the consumer in all types of transactions and consumer situations.

UDAP is but another example of the rights that consumers have in New Jersey. New Jersey has one of the strongest consumer fraud statutes rights statutes in the country. If you have been damages result of the deceptive practice and have sustained an ascertainable loss and maintain a claim under the New Jersey Consumer Fraud Act one of the other numerous statutes which enforces consumer rights.

There is the Consumer Fraud Act the Truth in Contract and Warranty Notice Act the used and new car lemon law and many others.

UDAP violations include affirmative misrepresentations, material omissions, regulation violations and other type of deceptive conduct. An example of an affirmative misrepresentation is if one were to say, negotiating a transaction for the acquisition or sale of an automobile, that the vehicle had not been in an accident and it had actually been in an accident, that would probably be considered an affirmative misrepresentation under the New Jersey Consumer Fraud Act and would also be considered a UDAP violation. If, hypothetically, the seller of an automobile who knew a vehicle was in an accident failed to make appropriate disclosure to a potential customer and this omission was done intentionally, knowing that the consumer would place importance on the statement, it might be considered a material omission under New Jersey UDAP statute. Pertaining to regulation violations, there are many administrative code provisions which create violations of the New Jersey Consumer Fraud Act. These range from advertising regulations, automobile repair regulations, general advertising regulations and home improvement regulations. If a business violates one of these administrative code regulations, it is known as a per se violation of the New Jersey Consumer Fraud Act. The business is assumed to be knowledgeable pertaining to these regulations and their failure to follow the administrative code regulations creates a violation of the New Jersey Consumer Fraud Act. This is the obligation of the consumer to prove an ascertainable loss, which has a causal nexus with the administrative code regulations. Once the consumer proves a causal nexus between an ascertainable loss and a violation of the administrative code, the consumers are entitled to recover that ascertainable loss after it is tripled, plus attorney’s fees and costs. This is another type of UDAP violation covered under the New Jersey Law.

The New Jersey Consumer Fraud Act addresses and provides remedies for UDAP violations. Remedies include money damages. Remedies include statutory damages. Remedies include injunctive relief. Remedies can be crafted by the court to address certain circumstances. Remedies can include punitive damages. Punitive damages are meant to punish. Remedies can be provided in many ways both awarded by the trier fact, the judge or jury. It is important to note that the nature and extent of the remedies is only limited by the creativeness and imagination of both the court and counsel. The court and counsel can draw upon their experience to fashion reasonable and fair remedies, both money damages and otherwise.

New Jersey law specifically supports a claim against the individual corporate defendant, assuming there is a participation in the fraud or consumer fraud. See See Real v. Radir Wheels --- A.2d ----, 2009 WL 961206, N.J., April 08, 2009 (NO. A-26 SEPT TERM 2008). In Radir, the New Jersey Supreme Court specifically held that the New Jersey Consumer Fraud Act applied to “all persons” pursuant to the statutory definitions.