Hyundai Drivers Hit with Marked-Up End-of-Lease Prices, Class Action Claims

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A proposed class action alleges certain Hyundai drivers have been wrongfully charged more than the end-of-lease price specified in their leases once the lease was up. 

The plaintiff, a Rhode Island consumer, says in the 23-page breach-of-contract suit that the lease for her 2019 Hyundai Elantra provided that she could buy the vehicle at the end of the lease for its “residual value” plus a “purchase option fee,” both of which were specified in the lease, in addition to any official fees for taxes, title and registration. The sum of these costs is the lease-end purchase price, which for the plaintiff amounted to $9,520.80, according to the case. 

When the time came to actually purchase her car once her lease was up, the plaintiff was charged nearly $12,000, the suit claims. The lawsuit alleges this kind of markup is “a common practice” on the part of defendants Hyundai Capital America and Hyundai Lease Titling Trust, as well as among Hyundai and Kia dealers. 

“Hyundai Capital America and Hyundai Lease Titling Trust are aware of the practice, and have been for years,” the suit alleges, claiming the entities allow Hyundai and Kia dealers to overcharge consumers for their lease-end purchase price. 

The filing states that the Consumer Leasing Act requires a lessor to accurately disclose “the amount or method determining the amount of any liabilities the lease imposes upon the lessee at the end of the term and whether or not the lessee has the option to purchase the leased property and at what price and time.” 

“If Hyundai Lease Titling Trust and Hyundai Capital America choose to have Hyundai and Kia dealers handle lease-end transactions on their behalf, they have the obligation to cause their dealer-agents to honor the lease end purchase price,” the complaint asserts. 

The lawsuit alleges each defendant “knows that its disclosure of the ‘purchase price’ in the printed lease form is inaccurate” since the entities—Hyundai Capital America, Kia Finance America, Genesis Finance, Hyundai Motor Finance, Kia Motors Finance, Hyundai Finance and Hyundai Leasing Title Trust—refer consumers at lease-end to Hyundai and Kia dealers, that those dealers charge more than the lease-end price, and that the dealers, including defendant Grieco Hyundai, from whom the plaintiff bought her car, will be permitted to do so. 

The case looks to cover all persons in the United States who leased a vehicle on a lease that was held by Hyundai Lease Titling Trust or serviced by Hyundai Capital America at its end and where the person bought the vehicle at the end of the lease and was charged more than the lease-end purchase price, and where the termination of the lease was within the last four years. 

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