Consumer Action for a Strong Economy (Case), a consumer watchdog group, announced the relaunch of a TV ad campaign urging president Trump to not allow Volkswagen to send inventory of bought-back vehicles from Germany to the US market.
The news came days after the unsealing of a criminal indictment against six Volkswagen executives, including the car brand’s former chief executive Martin Winterkom. Hundreds of thousands of automobiles were recalled during the 2015 ‘Dieselgate’ scandal, when the EPA issued a violation notice for manipulating its auto emissions. According to claims made by Volkswagen, these vehicles have been provided with regular maintenance, and it is hoping that those fixes made for its fleet of vehicles will be approved by the EPA.
The ads took aim at German president Angela Merkel — Volkswagen is partly owned by the German government — and pleaded with Trump to keep these environmentally-unfriendly vehicles off the streets, and to save American jobs. The ads have been airing on MSNBC, Fox News, CNN and Fox Business channels.
Matthew Kandrach, Case's president, said in a statement: "With the latest indictments we remain greatly concerned that Volkswagen still has not cleaned up its act, and in fact is stonewalling US efforts to unearth the depth of the scandal in the hopes of preventing it from ever happening again.
"We are all for consumers getting a great deal, but the situation with Volkswagen is very troubling. Given Volkswagen's track record, ongoing legal issues, and downright refusal to come clean on their current practices, it's maybe time we hit the brakes on that idea."