PATRIOT ACT 101
The USA Patriot Act, which was signed into law in October 2001, imposed additional anti-terrorism and money laundering compliance responsibilities on automobile dealerships and sales finance companies.

However, the USA Patriot Act also focused attention on a compliance responsibility that has been in place for several years, namely, the due diligence dealers and sales finance companies must perform when entering into customer contracts. This requirement is clear and its obligation immediate:

Auto dealers are required by law to review the Treasury Department's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) list, which includes the names of individuals, organizations and countries against which the U.S has imposed sanctions. Dealerships must review this list prior to entering into any sales or finance contract with an individual, business entity, charitable organization--anyone.

There are penalties for those that do not establish procedures to review the OFAC list and there are fines for dealerships that enter into a contract with anyone on the list. Also, if you enter into a finance contract with a person on the list and then attempt to assign the contract, your proposed assignee will likely return the contract to you. You could end up with one less car and a worthless contract.

Why Patriotdealer.com?

Other OFAC services simply don't provide a compliance solution:

Credit Bureaus: Bureaus have a very loose-matching algorithm that DOES create false positives. These are printed on the report, which creates confusion in the dealership and delays delivery. Most of the time, these 'matches' are incorrect but the dealership is left to manually 'clear' the name and prove to the lender that the applicant's 'hit' on the OFAC list is incorrect. The bureaus offer no support of their OFAC product.

Menus/other integrated solutions: Unless the software provider is integrated with PatriotDealer, dealers face a range of solutions. While some may be more effective and informative than others, none of them provides live support.

Manually checking the list from the Treasury Department: It's an extensive list (10432 names on more than 150 pages as of 8/9/2024) and is updated frequently. Although the list is published on the Treasury Department's website, it is not in an electronically searchable format and it is not user-friendly. The given/known names are in alphabetical order with any aliases in parentheses next to the name. For example, if you are looking for 'Frank Massey,' you cannot just go to the 'M' page because the name may be an alias for a name appearing on the 'F' page. Cumbersome? You got it. The other shortfall with the manual list is that you are not provided a confirmation proving you conducted the search prior to entering into the transaction.

PatriotDealer.com is the Industry Leader

PatriotDealer.com understands the automotive industry. Unlike other OFAC information databases, our application, PatriotCheck, was designed specifically for and by dealership professionals. It's easy to use, and all searches return instant results that are clear and concise. To further protect your dealership, you can even print each search result for your records and store all searches in our database for audit reports and proof of the search.

The pricing structure is also very simple. An annual fee with unlimited searches becomes very cost effective compared to the fees charged by transaction at the credit bureaus. We also completely support our service, and our dealers, 7 days a week until Midnight (Eastern) every day. Have a question about a match? Call us...we're here to keep the compliance from holding up delivery.

Learn more with our demo, take our free trial, contact us with any questions or sign up now to begin safeguarding your dealership today.