Consumer Protection Updates

This morning, Marcus Moench, a Boulder resident, drove to the Gebhardt Volkswagen dealership and asked the dealership to buy back his 2010 Jetta Sportswagen TDI diesel car at the full original purchase price, not the current “blue book” value, to compensate for the harm of being deceived into driving a polluting vehicle. This action is part of the CoPIRG Foundation’s “Make VW Pay” campaign to hold Volkswagen accountable for deceiving half a million U.S. consumers into buying pollution-spewing cars that led to massive, undeserved profits.

We launched a “Make VW Pay Campaign” as VW's CEO resigned over the scandal surrounding its "defeat device" scheme (and subsequent cover-up) to trick EPA pollution monitoring computers in nearly half a million diesel cars sold in the U.S. We are demanding a full rebate in buy backs to customers and other accountability.

Statement from CoPIRG Director Danny Katz

“Today Governor Hickenlooper stood up for Coloradans and vetoed HB15-1390, a last minute, special interest bill that would have increased borrowing costs on hard-working families across Colorado. This was rushed through with little debate, the proponent’s arguments were not supported by facts and the clear losers would have been the thousands of Coloradan’s whose interest rates would have jumped arbitrarily. We applaud the Governor for stopping this special interest giveaway. That's not how we do business in Colorado.”

Colorado’s consumer watchdog is poised to get disconnected from telephone issues by the Colorado State Senate Friday. Unless an amendment is approved to allow Colorado’s consumer advocate, the Office of Consumer Counsel (OCC), to continue to do its job on telecom issues, Coloradans will be in danger of losing the representative that for 30 years has fought against unjustified prices and anti-consumer practices and won.