By CRM Staff
Toronto, Ontario – March 27, 2019 –A Mississauga man has been sentenced to 30 days in jail for the illegal sale of vehicles and odometer tampering.
Szymon Kozlowski was found guilty of curbsiding, acting as a dealer without registration—contrary to the Motor Vehicles Dealers Act (MVDA). He was also found guilty of committing an unfair business practice- making a false, misleading or deceptive representation- in contravention of the Consumer Protection Act (CPA).
Evidence gathered by investigators for the Ontario Motor Vehicle Council (OMVIC), the province’s vehicle sales regulator, showed that Kozlowski bought vehicles from private citizens between 2016 and 2017. The vehicles were later advertised by Kozlowski and resold, with some of the vehicles having odometers that had been rolled back.
“In one case, Kozlowski sold an unsuspecting consumer a 2008 Toyota with an odometer that read 56,753 kilometres. In reality, the car had more than 309,800 kilometres on it,” said Don Cousens, OMVIC’s manager of Investigations.
“Consumers are understandably angry when they buy a car anticipating it will provide reliable service for years, only to discover it may actually be near the end of its useful life,” Cousens said. “Considering this was a first offence for curbsiding, the sentence demonstrates that the courts take these issues of consumer harm very seriously.”
Kozlowski was convicted on four counts of curbsiding and four counts of committing an unfair business practice at his hearing in Mississauga Provincial Offences Court.
To help prevent more buyers from being deceived, OMVIC provided the following list to explain common tactics used by curbsiders:
- the vehicle is not registered to the seller, or, has only been registered to the seller for a short period of time
- the vehicle is priced below market value
- the seller doesn’t provide the mandatory Used Vehicle Information Package (UVIP) or provides a UVIP that has been tampered with (e.g. lien or mileage info removed) or with missing pages
- the seller refuses to allow an inspection by purchaser’s mechanic
- the vehicle is not plated and/or insured; therefore, a test-drive is not possible
- the seller refuses to provide a receipt or proof of purchase
