Lindsay Automotive Settlement: $75M Refunds and How to Claim

If you bought a car from a Lindsay dealership in the Washington, D.C., area between April 1, 2020, and December 31, 2025, you may be eligible for a refund under the Lindsay Automotive settlement reached in April 2026 with the Federal Trade Commission and the Maryland Attorney General. The deal covers more than $75 million in potential consumer refunds, but the money is not automatic: you have to receive a notice and submit a claim once a federal judge approves the order.¹

Who Qualifies for a Refund

Eligibility turns on which Lindsay location you bought from and, for two of the three stores, where you live.

Lindsay Ford in Wheaton, Maryland. All affected customers are eligible, regardless of what state they live in.²

Lindsay Chevrolet in Woodbridge, Virginia, and Lindsay Chrysler-Dodge-Jeep-Ram in Manassas, Virginia. Only Maryland residents qualify. Virginia and D.C. buyers at these two stores are not covered by the settlement’s refund program.²

There are two types of refunds. The first covers the gap between the price Lindsay advertised and what you actually paid. The second, available only to Lindsay Ford customers, covers charges for add-on products like GAP insurance, service contracts, maintenance plans, or dent protection that you either did not agree to buy or were told were mandatory when they were not.²

The eligibility window runs from April 1, 2020, through December 31, 2025.¹ The settlement calls for full refunds of the overcharges, not partial recovery. In a survey of Lindsay customers referenced in the underlying complaint, more than 88 percent paid over the advertised price and most paid over $2,000 more, so the individual amounts at stake are meaningful.³

How to Claim Your Refund

The refund process is claim-based. You will not be paid unless you actively file a claim.

The Maryland Attorney General’s Office plans to send notices to eligible consumers once the settlement is approved. Those notices will direct you to a third-party claims administrator. You’ll need to complete and return a form to that administrator to confirm your eligibility and receive payment.¹

As of mid-2026, no notices had gone out. The proposed order was still awaiting a judge’s signature in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, and the total dollar amount owed to consumers had not been finalized.² Until that approval comes through, there is nothing to file.

A few practical steps make sense while you wait:

Make sure the address on file with the dealership — or with your lender if you financed through Lindsay — is current, since that is where the notice is likely to be mailed.
Locate your purchase paperwork: the buyer’s order, the finance contract, and any add-on product agreements. The claims administrator may ask you to confirm what you paid and what was added to your deal.
Watch for correspondence from the Maryland Attorney General’s Office or a settlement administrator rather than from Lindsay directly.

Be alert for scams. Legitimate claim notices will not ask you to pay a fee to receive your refund.

What Lindsay Was Accused Of

The refund categories track the conduct alleged in the December 2024 complaint filed by the FTC and the Maryland Attorney General. Recognizing your own experience in these descriptions is a good sign you may qualify.

Advertised prices that were not honored. Lindsay marketed vehicles at a “Lindsay Love It Price” online. When customers arrived, staff told them they did not qualify for that price because it included stacked rebates and incentives, such as military, educator, or loyalty discounts, that were not disclosed in the ads and often could not be combined. Michael Lindsay, the group’s president, wrote in an internal email quoted in the complaint that “we never deliver the vehicle anywhere near the stated price.”³

Unauthorized or falsely mandatory add-ons. A customer survey cited in the complaint found that 68 percent of buyers were charged for at least one product they did not agree to buy or were falsely told was required. The products included GAP insurance, vehicle service contracts, maintenance plans, and dent protection.³

Forced dealership financing. Roughly 38 percent of surveyed customers said they were told they had to finance through Lindsay to get the advertised price, even when they had already secured outside loans, including through military credit unions.³ Financing overcharges are not called out as a separate refund category in the settlement, so if this happened to you, the recovery route runs through the price-discrepancy refund.

Other Terms of the Settlement

Beyond consumer refunds, Lindsay must pay a $3.1 million civil penalty to the Maryland Attorney General’s Office.² That money goes to the state, not to individual buyers.

The proposed order also permanently bars the dealerships from misrepresenting the cost of buying, financing, or leasing a vehicle and from claiming a vehicle is available at an advertised price when it is not. Going forward, Lindsay must display the total price, including all mandatory fees other than government charges, as the most prominent item in any visual advertisement. Before charging for any add-on product, the company must obtain “express, informed consent,” which the order defines as a clear written disclosure of what the charge is, how much it costs, whether it is optional, and an affirmative act of agreement from the customer.⁴

The order runs for five years and gives the FTC and the Maryland Attorney General authority to inspect records, interview employees, and send undercover monitors posing as customers to test whether the dealerships are complying.⁴

Where the Case Stands

The settlement was announced on April 2, 2026, after the FTC voted 2-0 to approve filing the proposed order.¹ It becomes binding only when a judge in the Eastern District of Virginia signs it. Until then, refund notices will not be mailed and the claims process cannot begin.

The three Lindsay dealership locations, along with Lindsay Management Company, remain open. The individual defendants named in the complaint — Michael Lindsay, chief operating officer John Smallwood, and former general manager Paul Smyth — are covered by the settlement’s conduct restrictions alongside the corporate entities, though no separate personal financial penalties were publicly specified.⁵

If you think you’re covered, the most useful thing you can do now is keep your paperwork accessible and your mailing address current. The notice, when it arrives, will come from the Maryland Attorney General’s Office or the appointed claims administrator.