Two Men Convicted Of Misleading Consumers At Car Dealership On Kildare Border

It follows prosecutions by the CCPC

Two men have been convicted of misleading consumers about the history of second-hand cars at their dealership in Lucan.

Following prosecutions brought by the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission (CCPC), Brian Healy and Andrius Miliauskas, of Lucan Auto Sales were both convicted.

Andrius Miliauskas pled guilty to six offences and Brian Healy pled guilty to four offences. 

In a ruling at Dublin District Court this morning, Judge Anthony Halpin sentenced Mr Miliauskas to four months in prison.

Mr Healy was fined €1,500 and ordered to pay costs of €3,567 to the CCPC and compensation of €1,994 to a consumer.   

Under consumer protection law, it is an offence for traders to give false, misleading or deceptive information about the history of a car. 

The charges were in respect of a 161 Ford Focus which was crashed in March 2023, classed as a write-off and sold as salvage, then to Lucan Auto Sales which sold it to a consumer in June 2023 for €11,500. The dealers gave the buyer misleading information regarding the car’s crash history.  

The second case was a 142 Audi A5 which was crashed and written off in the UK in 2017, then sold by Lucan Auto Sales for €14,000 in June 2024 without disclosing its crash history. When the consumer subsequently discovered it had been crashed and returned the car to the dealer, it was almost immediately readvertised, again without disclosing its crash history.  

Both consumers reported their experience to the CCPC, which then opened an investigation.  

Judge Halpin noted that the dealers had “completely deceived” the two consumers, saying that if one of the previously written-off cars were to break down on the road, "not only could the people in that car be killed, but other people could be killed as a consequence of that

They added that to "deceive a buyer in that regard is outrageous”. 

The CCPC prosecuted Mr Healy, the owner of Lucan Auto Sales, following an investigation which established that Mr Healy had knowingly overseen the sale of vehicles to consumers who had been provided with misleading information on the history of said vehicles. 

Mr Miliauskas, also of Lucan Auto Sales, was prosecuted following a CCPC investigation which established that he had sold a vehicle to a consumer and, during that transaction, provided the consumer with misleading information about the car’s history.

Mr Miliauskas had previously been investigated by the CCPC and, in 2023, was convicted of misleading a consumer in relation to the crash history of a car.

That conviction was subsequently upheld in the Circuit Court. 

Today’s court orders against Mr Miliauskas have been appealed to the Circuit Court.