This photo of a production version of Tesla’s Model Y was included in the company’s fourth quarter 2019 earnings report.
Tesla
CNBC has noted that Tesla has reimbursed customers it has charged twice for new vehicle purchases made at the end of the first quarter.
Refunds followed CNBC reports of duplicate charges and a video review of “Everyday Chris,” Christopher T. Lee, on YouTube, urging other Tesla buyers to use a cashier’s check if they could, instead of allow Tesla to debit your bank account directly.
Six California and North Carolina customers who spoke and shared records with CNBC found that their refunds took about a week to arrive after initially complaining to Elon Musk’s electric car company.
These customers received their refunds as of April 1, including payments for overdraft commissions that had resulted in duplicate withdrawals of Tesla from their accounts.
This week, Tesla also apologized to the affected owners by email and gave them a $ 200 credit to spend on a single visit to the company’s online store, according to an email several customers shared with CNBC. The credit must be used in a single transaction at shop.tesla.com, cannot be used for Tesla Tequila and expires on January 30, 2022, according to the email.
Today in the Tesla online store, $ 200 can buy smaller items such as Tesla brand clothing or a new keychain for a Model 3 or Model Y, but not premium items and vehicle accessories , such as a roof rack or a pack of adapters that allow drivers to connect a Tesla to any power outlet to charge it at home or on the road.
Customers react
A spokesman for the National Automated Clearing House Association, or NACHA, told CNBC that, anecdotally, unauthorized duplicate charges for high-priced items purchased with ACH debit are uncommon. NACHA manages the development and governance of the ACH network.
Lee and two California-based Tesla owners, Clark Peterson and Tom Slattery, who spoke to CNBC about the doubled charges in March, said Tesla needs to improve its sales and customer service.
Peterson said, “While he’s happy to have the whole situation in order, I still feel the response time was inadequate. It was days before Tesla had any response and they kept our funds significant all the time. And it took them five minutes to get those funds out of our account. “
Slattery said the gesture is too small, too late. He’s already bought all the accessories he needs and doesn’t feel like wearing the Tesla logo as an ad right now, he told CNBC Tuesday night.
When the duplicate charges came to his account, he was heading to another state to look at houses, hoping to bid for one. Instead, he spent time distracted, stressed, and trying to get anything in writing about the return.
Tesla returned it on March 31, about a week after Slattery initially called and visited the company’s Burbank service center and showroom looking for answers, he said.
After receiving Tesla’s apology email Tuesday night, Slattery told CNBC, “Any reasonable thing done quickly would have been completely fine. But I’ve learned that Tesla’s culture is that they care about the stock price and not by customers “.
When he read the news about Tesla’s first-quarter vehicle delivery record numbers, he said he wanted to be happy for the company, but instead had a sense of collapse.
“I thought,‘ Did you have to put us aside, even though you had these ridiculously positive sales figures?
The problems were not limited to California customers.
A former North Carolina banking executive, who asked to be left without a name for privacy reasons, said it was unreasonable for a refund to have a full work week.
This person was charged double for a 2021 Y model, which cost about $ 54,000. He bought the car online and was charged twice the funds withdrawn from his account on March 25th.
It was his bank, rather than Tesla, that alerted him to unusual activity, he said. It took him about six hours to make a series of phone calls to banks and Tesla, in North Carolina and California, and find out what had happened, and he did not receive any emails about the next refund until March 31. Meanwhile, funds were withdrawn from an intermediary account to cover expenses, he said.
Although he is satisfied with the car in general and has already driven it a few hundred miles, he said he would appreciate that Tesla’s customer service would only be 1 in 5. He said it is clearly the Tesla’s mistake, not the banks’ mistake.
Tesla did not immediately respond to a request for comment.