Independent profile — not affiliated with Carvana
Carvana
Carvana is a publicly traded (NYSE: CVNA) online used-car retailer known for its automated "car vending machine" pickup towers, founded in 2012 in Phoenix as an offshoot of DriveTime, the subprime dealer network controlled by the same Garcia family. Between 2021 and 2025, regulators in at least seven states -- Illinois, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Georgia, Florida, and Connecticut -- took licensing or enforcement action against Carvana over recurring vehicle title and registration delays, with Pennsylvania and Georgia issuing fresh penalties as recently as 2025. The company also disclosed in mid-2025 that it received an SEC subpoena following a short-seller report, and has faced an ongoing federal securities class action over its growth and compliance disclosures; a separate Delaware Chancery derivative suit alleging a related-party stock sale benefited its CEO's father was dismissed in 2024 after an independent committee found no wrongdoing.
Complaint Themes
Independent Sources
Shown for context — not merged with USAComplaints' own numbers.
Contacts
- Website: https://www.carvana.com
- BBB-listed consumer contact: (833) 893-0978
Locations
| Type | Address |
|---|---|
| Headquarters | 300 E Rio Salado Pkwy, Bldg. 1 Tempe AZ 85281 |
Corporate background
Carvana was founded in 2012 in Phoenix, Arizona by Ernest Garcia III, Ryan Keeton, and Ben Huston, initially as a project of DriveTime, the subprime used-car dealer network controlled by Garcia III's father, Ernest Garcia II. Carvana became known for its automated multi-story "car vending machine" pickup towers (the first opened in Nashville in November 2015) and completed its NYSE IPO on May 3, 2017. In May 2022 it closed a roughly $2.2 billion cash acquisition of ADESA's U.S. physical vehicle-auction business from KAR Global, adding 56 sites nationwide. Ernest Garcia II is DriveTime's controlling stockholder and, per Carvana's most recent proxy statement, also Carvana's controlling stockholder (roughly 50% of voting power, vs. about 33% for Ernest Garcia III); SEC filings disclose ongoing related-party transactions between the two companies covering finance-receivable servicing, warranty/VSC administration, wholesale vehicle purchases, and reconditioning arrangements.
Is Carvana Legitimate?
Carvana's most substantiated regulatory problem is a recurring failure to transfer vehicle titles and issue valid registrations within the time required by state law. Illinois, Michigan, North Carolina, and Pennsylvania each suspended or restricted Carvana dealership licenses between 2021 and 2023 over this exact pattern, and Michigan regulators additionally alleged Carvana staff destroyed title paperwork for at least three returned vehicles. In January 2025, Connecticut's Attorney General reached a $1.5 million settlement covering the same complaint pattern -- delayed titles, delayed trade-in payoffs, and inaccurate vehicle descriptions -- for consumers dating back to 2019, indicating the issue was not confined to the states that pursued formal license action.
Securities and related-party litigation
Separately from consumer-facing complaints, Carvana has faced a consolidated federal securities class action (District of Arizona) alleging it misled investors about the sustainability of its sales growth and its state title/registration compliance -- a judge dismissed the complaint without prejudice in February 2024, and plaintiffs filed an amended complaint, so the case remains open. Carvana also faced a Delaware Chancery derivative suit alleging its board approved a discounted 2020 stock sale that benefited CEO Ernest Garcia III and his father at other shareholders' expense; a Special Litigation Committee investigated for nearly two years and found no wrongdoing, and the Court of Chancery dismissed the case in March 2024. Both matters concern corporate governance and investor disclosures rather than direct consumer harm, but they speak to the same related-party structure (Carvana/DriveTime/the Garcia family) that recurs across the company's legal history.
Court & Public Records
| Case | Authority | Dates | Type | Outcome | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Illinois Secretary of State v. Carvana (dealer license administrative action) | Illinois Secretary of State dealer-licensing enforcement | Settled | Settled The Illinois Secretary of State opened an investigation in February 2022 and suspended Carvana's dealer license in May 2022 over failure to timely transfer vehicle titles and improper use of out-of-state temporary registrations. Carvana settled on January 24, 2023, surrendering a $250,000 bond and agreeing to compliance/inspection requirements. | Source | |
| Illinois v. Paul Breaux (Carvana VP/General Counsel, individual criminal title-transfer charges) | Illinois Secretary of State criminal prosecution | Filed | Filed — no final outcome recorded Separately from the company's administrative settlement, the Illinois Secretary of State filed criminal charges against Carvana VP/General Counsel Paul Breaux individually -- 27 counts of failing to transfer titles, 50 counts of improper titling/registration use, and 2 counts of operating as an unlicensed dealer. This individual prosecution was not resolved by Carvana's January 2023 administrative settlement. | Source | |
| Michigan Department of State v. Carvana (Novi dealership license revocation) | Michigan Department of State dealer-licensing enforcement | Settled | Settled Michigan suspended Carvana's Novi dealership license on October 7, 2022, citing failure to submit title/registration paperwork within 15 days for 112 customers (after an earlier probation), odometer-record irregularities, improper temporary-registration issuance, and an allegation that Carvana employees destroyed title applications and related documents for three vehicles taken back from customers. Carvana's attempt to obtain a restraining order against the state failed; the administrative dispute was resolved January 11, 2023 with Carvana accepting a 3-year revocation of the Novi location's license. | Source | |
| North Carolina DMV v. Carvana (Wake County dealership suspension) | North Carolina Division of Motor Vehicles dealer-licensing enforcement | — | Settled | Settled The NC DMV suspended Carvana's Raleigh/Wake County dealership license for 180 days (Aug. 2, 2021 - Jan. 29, 2022) over unlawful issuance of out-of-state temporary tags and sales of vehicles without North Carolina's required inspection, plus a $500 civil penalty and $200 administrative fee. Carvana's Charlotte location was placed on probation through November 2022, per contemporaneous news reporting (the DMV's own final order was not independently reviewed for this entry). | Source |
| Pennsylvania State Board of Vehicle Manufacturers, Dealers and Salespersons v. Carvana | Pennsylvania Department of State disciplinary proceeding | — | Settled | Settled Following a 2022 PennDOT suspension of Carvana's vehicle-registration/agent-services authority at its Bridgeville location (which restricted on-site title/registration processing but not vehicle sales), Pennsylvania's licensing board took a separate, more recent disciplinary action on February 6, 2025 against Carvana's dealer licenses (Nos. VD033221 and VD033194, Philadelphia and Bridgeville): 3 years' probation and a $30,000 civil penalty per location ($60,000 total), citing prior suspension of the company's PennDOT registration-plate authority and failure to timely report that action. | Source |
| Georgia Attorney General v. Carvana | Georgia Attorney General Consumer Protection Division | — | Settled | Settled Georgia's Attorney General found Carvana allegedly violated the state's Fair Business Practices Act by not timely completing title/registration work and by issuing additional out-of-state temporary tags to buyers whose original tags expired -- something Georgia dealers are not permitted to do. Carvana agreed to bring its practices into compliance and pay a $250,000 civil penalty, per the AG's 2025 consumer-protection accomplishments summary. | Source |
| Connecticut Attorney General v. Carvana | Connecticut Attorney General consumer-protection action (Hartford Superior Court approval) | — | Settled | Settled Attorney General William Tong announced a settlement resolving hundreds of Connecticut consumer complaints about delayed vehicle title/registration transfers, delayed trade-in payoff payments, inaccurate vehicle condition/equipment descriptions, and customer-service failures. Carvana agreed to pay a $1 million consumer-restitution fund plus a $500,000 penalty (up to $250,000 of which may be suspended for compliance), covering Connecticut buyers dating back to January 1, 2019, and to provide valid title/registration at time of sale going forward. This was a Connecticut-specific settlement, not a nationwide resolution, though similar title/registration complaint patterns have surfaced in other states. | Source |
| Jennings, et al. v. Carvana, LLC Docket 5:21-cv-05400-EGS | U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Pennsylvania | Appeal decided | Appeal decided — see outcome Consumer class action (originally filed in Pennsylvania state court in November 2021, then removed to federal court) alleging Carvana systematically failed to register purchased vehicles in a timely manner as promised. The district court denied Carvana's motion to compel arbitration; Carvana appealed, and the Third Circuit affirmed the denial and remanded on March 21, 2024. The case remained active and pending as of Carvana's most recent SEC quarterly filing. | Source | |
| Harvin, et al. v. Carvana, LLC, et al. Docket 2:23-cv-02068-MRP | U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Pennsylvania | — | Filed | Filed — no final outcome recorded A second, separate consumer class action over Carvana's title/registration practices, listed alongside Jennings among Carvana's current legal disputes in its most recent SEC quarterly filing. | Source |
| In re Carvana Co. Securities Litigation Docket CV-22-02126-PHX-MTL | U.S. District Court, District of Arizona | Filed | Filed — no final outcome recorded Consolidated federal securities class action (originally two separate suits filed in the District of New Jersey, then transferred and consolidated in the District of Arizona) alleging Carvana misled investors about the sustainability of its retail-sales growth and its compliance with state title/registration laws. On February 29, 2024, the court dismissed the consolidated complaint with leave to amend; plaintiffs filed an amended complaint in March 2024, and a second motion to dismiss was partially granted and partially denied in December 2024, allowing core securities-fraud claims to proceed. The case remained in active discovery through 2025-2026, with plaintiffs moving for class certification in April 2026. | Source | |
| SEC subpoena to Carvana Co. (short-seller-report inquiry) | U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (informal inquiry) | — | Allegation | Allegation only — no filing confirmed Following a January 2025 short-seller report that Carvana says it investigated and found inaccurate, incomplete, or misleading, Carvana contacted the SEC and received a subpoena in June 2025. Carvana states the request relates primarily to the allegations in the short-seller report and that it is fully cooperating; the company's SEC filings do not report any SEC finding of wrongdoing. | Source |
| In re Carvana Co. Stockholders Litigation Docket 2020-0415-KSJM | Delaware Court of Chancery | — | Dismissed | Dismissed Derivative suit alleging Carvana's board breached its fiduciary duty by approving a $600 million stock offering in March 2020 to CEO Ernest Garcia III, his father Ernest Garcia II (DriveTime's owner), and select investors at what plaintiffs called an unfairly low price, without independent-director approval. The Court of Chancery denied defendants' motion to dismiss on June 30, 2022, finding demand futility adequately alleged. A Special Litigation Committee then investigated for nearly two years and issued a 170-page report finding no wrongdoing by the controlling stockholders; on March 27, 2024, the Court of Chancery granted the SLC's motion and dismissed the case. | Source |
Company Relationships
- Affiliated with: DriveTime Automotive Group