Sales of Fiat Chrysler Automobiles (FCA) cars were charged with paying USD $ 8.7 million in damages for being accused of selling the car using an employee discount.
He was charged with orchestrating a conspiracy against car manufacturers. Currently, the salesperson has to pay compensation to the automotive company group which is now known as Stellantis.
Reporting from Carscoops, Tuesday (4/5/2021), a criminal complaint accused a salesperson named Apollon Nimo (34) from Parkway Chrysler Dodge Jeep Ram of arranging fraud to illegally sell employee discounts to unqualified buyers.
FCA offers a 5 percent discount to employees and relatives who buy vehicles. Most of Nimo’s sales fall under the Employee Purchasing Control Number program, making it the best seller in the entire country. Apart from the discount, the FCA loss is added to the bonus received by the salesperson. In his report, Homeland Security Investigation Special Agent Joseph Kunnummyalil noted that from 2010 to 2019, the employee received USD $ 700,000 as a gift from the FCA, in addition to compensation from the dealer.
Detroit News said investigators from the FCA learned of the conspiracy after discovering employee numbers were bought and sold in private Facebook groups. Many employees have complained to car manufacturers that their employee numbers are used without their consent.
After analyzing 268 numbers used illegally, it was revealed that everyone could be traced to Nimo from 2016 to 2018. Investigators were suspicious when Nimo sold about 250 vehicles in January 2020, which is clearly very high. Employees at the auto factory receive a certain amount of discounts each year and are assigned an employee number which can then be given to relatives to receive a discount on the purchase of a new vehicle. The dealer will then verify the information in the carmaker’s system and enter the employee’s name, relative’s name and employee number.
