The Finance Desk's First Question Is the Trick. The FTC Named It 'Payment Packing.'

The moment you answer “what monthly payment are you looking for?”, you have given away the only number you were holding. Everything after that happens in an office you cannot see.

The FTC has a name for what happens next. It calls it payment packing.

In an administrative complaint filed August 16, 2024, the agency accused Asbury Automotive Group, three of its Texas stores, and a general manager named Ali Benli of running the play at scale. The stores were David McDavid Ford Ft. Worth, David McDavid Honda Frisco, and David McDavid Honda Irving. The FTC’s description of the tactic is worth reading slowly: the dealerships convinced customers to agree to monthly payments larger than needed to pay for the agreed-upon price of the car, then packed add-on items into the contract to make up that difference.

Read that again. The add-ons were not sold to you. They were sized to fit a hole you volunteered.

A survey cited in the complaint found roughly 75% of customers said they were charged for add-ons they never approved or were falsely told were required. The agency also charged the group under the Equal Credit Opportunity Act, alleging Black customers paid an average of $298 more for add-ons and Latino customers an average of $214 more.

Then it went quiet. The docket shows stay after stay through 2025 and 2026. On September 3, 2026, the Commission issued an Order Granting Counsel’s Unopposed Motion to Withdraw This Matter From Adjudication.

Translation: under the FTC’s own Rule 3.25, that order comes out when a signed consent agreement has been filed. A settlement is sitting on the Commission’s desk. Two years and change after the complaint, with no terms public yet.

The math

Say you tell the desk $500 a month works. The car, tax, and legitimate fees actually finance out to $445 at your rate over 72 months. That gap is $55 a month, and it is now the store’s to fill.

At 9% over six years, $55 a month buys about $3,050 of add-ons: a coating, a service contract, a “protection package.” You will pay roughly $3,960 for it once interest is counted. Run your own version on our loan calculator.

You approved none of it. You approved $500.

Do this now

Never name a payment. Negotiate one number, the out-the-door price, and make them put it on an itemized buyer’s order before financing comes up at all. Walk in with a preapproval from your bank or credit union so the store has to beat something real. Then read every line between the vehicle price and the amount financed, and cross out what you did not ask for.

That is the whole defense, and it works on a store that has never heard of this case.

Because here is what the docket actually tells you. In March 2026 the FTC sent warning letters to 97 dealership groups over advertised prices that left out required fees. Letters, not cases. The one real case took two years to reach a settlement nobody has seen. Enforcement is not going to be standing next to you at the desk on a Saturday afternoon.

You are. Ask for the price.

If you are shopping financing before you shop cars, start with loan rates and lenders, and if you are buying in California, the new state pricing rules that start October 1 change what the ad has to say.

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