Six Indiana motorcycle dealerships charged excessive document-preparation fees to more than 1,700 consumers over a two-year period, according to Attorney General Todd Rokita. The agreements call for the dealerships – located in Plainfield, Bloomington, Lafayette, Michigan City, Kokomo and Valparaiso – to send $100 restitution checks to each consumer who purchased a vehicle from the dealerships during the relevant dates. The dealerships will pay a total of $174,000 in restitution.  

“I will do all I can to put money back into the pockets of Hoosiers who fall victim to deceptive business practices,” Rokita said. “We are pleased that these dealerships have agreed to send checks to affected Hoosiers and to lower their document-preparation fees in accordance with Indiana law.”

The office accused the dealerships of charging fees in violation of an earlier version of Indiana law that limited the types of fees dealers could charge for document preparation. Under current Indiana law, automobile and motorcycle dealers may not charge more than $200 for document preparation. If dealers advertise the sale price of a vehicle and charge a fee for document preparation, the document preparation fee must be included in the advertised price, current law states.

At the time, the dealerships had never determined the actual costs of preparing documents for a motor vehicle sale and arbitrarily chose to charge $299, the AG office alleged. During the investigation, the dealerships were only able to come up with approximately $200 worth of document-preparation expenses per vehicle. After May 1, 2019, the dealerships lowered their document-preparation fees to $199.

The impacted dealerships include Indywest Harley-Davidson Inc., Piranha Incorporated dba Harley-Davidson of Bloomington, Hunter’s Moon Harley-Davidson of Kokomo Inc., Harley-Davidson of Valparaiso dba The Harley-Davidson Shop of Michigan City, and Honda of Michigan City.