That is pretty bad. When I cancelled my Signature reservation, Tesla mailed my refund within a week and it was deposited in less than 14 days total.
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Cancelled My Reservation - Refund Timeline is Rediculous
- Thread starter Knight Rider
- Start date
That is pretty bad. When I cancelled my Signature reservation, Tesla mailed my refund within a week and it was deposited in less than 14 days total.
I canceled a reservation I had made on December 31, 2012 as "insurance" against the price increase. I canceled on January 31, 2012 after finalizing my original reservation. I got an email that day confirming the cancellation. I then got an email on Feb. 22, 2013 stating the $5,000 deposit had been credited to my Amex card. As of today, March 9, 2013, Amex has not received the refund.
Followed up with Tesla today. They told me to wait another 30 days for the refund. I think this is rediculous. I canceled the reservation January 30. A refund should be issued within days. It should not take 3 months to get a refund.
I'm sorry for ranting, but I am getting disallusioned with Tesla; with this refund issue, the fact that the performance Model S I took delivery of a week ago died after 100 miles (total mileage, including the mileage Tesla put on before the car was delivered to me), and the car has been in the shop since with them basically having no idea what is wrong with it, and that the service people here basically are technicians (they do tests that the engineers in CA tell them to do, then forward the test results to CA and wait for further instructiuons as to what to do next. That is not the way a car company can operate. Each service center should include people that are fully able to diagnose a problem and know what to do to fix the car).
I'm sorry for ranting, but I am getting disallusioned with Tesla; with this refund issue, the fact that the performance Model S I took delivery of a week ago died after 100 miles (total mileage, including the mileage Tesla put on before the car was delivered to me), and the car has been in the shop since with them basically having no idea what is wrong with it, and that the service people here basically are technicians (they do tests that the engineers in CA tell them to do, then forward the test results to CA and wait for further instructiuons as to what to do next. That is not the way a car company can operate. Each service center should include people that are fully able to diagnose a problem and know what to do to fix the car).
Raffy.Roma
Rome (Italy)
In Italy 20 business days to refund would have been considered normal.
Sorry that your Tesla has this problem. I am not ready to indict the entire corporation.
There are stories just like this for every BMW, Lexus, Mercedes, Ferrari, etc.
No company is perfect and unfortunately there is always the "one" car that doesn't run and nobody knows why.
Looks line you may have that "one" car.
Why do I say that? Because there are already 8,000+ cars that do NOT exhibit your problems.
For it to be symptomatic you need many more than just the one occurrence.
There are stories just like this for every BMW, Lexus, Mercedes, Ferrari, etc.
No company is perfect and unfortunately there is always the "one" car that doesn't run and nobody knows why.
Looks line you may have that "one" car.
Why do I say that? Because there are already 8,000+ cars that do NOT exhibit your problems.
For it to be symptomatic you need many more than just the one occurrence.
Merrill
Merrill
Having worked for both Volvo, Mercedes Benz and Nissan for over 25 years I can tell you that occasionally we would have a vehicle that was hard to diagnose. If the shop foreman could not repair it using years of technical experience and diagnostic equipment and working with the factory via email and phone, then the factory tech rep would come to the dealership and work on the vehicle. There were some occasions where the timeline for repairs was to long that the factory took the car back. This was always a painful procedure and most customers were not very happy. So it is not specific to Tesla, and these issues happen with all automotive manufactures.
Merrill, the difference is the Volvo, MB, etc. service people are trained on the vehicles. I do not get the impression that the tesla service center people have been trained in extensive diagnostic procedures on the car, and basically are the hands of the CA engineers. By that, I mean that I was told that the CA engineers tell the service center people to do procedure A and report the result back to them. Then the service people have to wait for the CA engineers to review the procedure results and provide further instructions. This is what is happening in my situation. The service center people spend a lot of time waiting for the engineers to provide instructions what to do next. It is not an efficient way to repair cars. Each service center should have at least one person fully trained on the vehicle and as knowelegable as the CA engineers.
I'm sure there eventually will be....but remember that this is a start up. Right now the setup seems reasonable for such a new technology. (Note I said reasonable...not ideal!).
It sounds like you do have that "one car". And all around are having a terrible Tesla experience. Sounds like This car just wasn't meant to be for you.....
It's sad really. The staff at the Tesla store are great, I was very happy with dealing with them up until now. Doesn't take long to ruin a good thing though.
If someone has George Blankenship's email address, I would appreciate it if you could PM it to me. I would like to forward this issue to him.
Thanks!
Merrill
Merrill
Swegman, you are correct to a certain extent. Since Tesla is a new company, the training for technicians is also new. There has been little time to set up the infrastructure to have a system of schools and teachers to send the technicians to on a regular basis. So at this point all they can do is communicate with home office. I agree that the ideal situation would be to have a shop foreman type trained on the vehicle at every service center. Hopefully at some point this will become a reality. I would like to see Tesla hire and train factory tech reps that could travel to the various service centers when they encounter a problem vehicle.
Reservation Cancellation
Hi Knight Rider,
I was wondering what the email address you sent the request email to was? I have sent 3 emails over this past month to 3 different addresses (1 to the configuration specialist, 1 to NA sales, 1 to Ownership) requesting the reservation be cancelled and deposit refunded, but I have not received any response to date.
Thank you.
Not sure if Tesla employees are taking the summer off?
Hi Knight Rider,
I was wondering what the email address you sent the request email to was? I have sent 3 emails over this past month to 3 different addresses (1 to the configuration specialist, 1 to NA sales, 1 to Ownership) requesting the reservation be cancelled and deposit refunded, but I have not received any response to date.
Thank you.
Not sure if Tesla employees are taking the summer off?
Oof glad this thread was started. I've been asking for my deposit back for over a month now, lot's of phone calls, lot's of emails, and just talked to someone in Fremont that said the check was mailed on Jan 11. There's a remote possibility that it actually got lost in the mail during a snow storm last week, but if not not then they actually gave me the check is in the mail treatment. 
Owning a small business, some of the problem is fraud. Credit cards are reasonably safe, as long as they are refunded back to the exact same card number. Checks are more dangerous.
I've heard bad things from businesses using PayPal getting money tied up or accounts totally frozen in fraud investigations. I'd think Mr Musk might have some contacts there if that's the case.
I've heard bad things from businesses using PayPal getting money tied up or accounts totally frozen in fraud investigations. I'd think Mr Musk might have some contacts there if that's the case.
The sad irony here, of course, is that Elon Musk was the co-founder of X.com, a precursor of PayPal (and later merged with and for which Elon served as the CEO for a time) -- a product created with the goal of allowing quick and easy movement of money.
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