complaince checks by Citibank for payment

[SEB197]

Has anyone else had this problem?

My Model Y is due for collection on the 30th of September.

I made a bank transfer on the 10th of September as a test payment. This has never appeared on my Tesla account.

All the bank details are correct. My order ref nuumber was correct. My bank confirms the payment has gone to Citibank.

I have been speakingto Tesla both on the phone and on email who kept saying "give it 24 hours".

Then on Thursday the 15th of September Tesla told me Citibank are doing complaince checks on the payment so this is why it hasn't been put on your account yet.

Whole situation is completely bizarre, never had anything like this when making a simple bank transfer. Payment still not on my account today and Tesla are saying wait until Wednesday now for an update due to the bank holiday weekend.

At this rate I'll have to delay the pick up date of the new car which isn't ideal as I have agreed to sell my old car on the 29th of September so will be carless.

Anyone had a payment delayed due to Citibank doing compliance checks?

 

[GRiLLA]

Nope.

I would say it doesn't sound like your problem, if Tesla's bankers are not transferring money then that's their issue. I would get some evidence from your bank that you have paid their bank and just turn up with that.

 

[SEB197]

Nope.

I would say it doesn't sound like your problem, if Tesla's bankers are not transferring money then that's their issue. I would get some evidence from your bank that you have paid their bank and just turn up with that.

Yeah I've been to my bank and they say it has been transffered and with Citibank.

Never had anything like this before! Really odd.

 

[pgh69]

Is the payment you are making to Tesla UK (as in a UK bank)?

In my business we make lots of US$ payments and all payments are being held by upto 3 weeks at the moment by Citibank who are the intermediary bank for ALL US dollar payments (as in all US$ payments have to be checked and verified by the intermediary bank).

Tbh its a pain in the ass but nothing to worry about....... its to do with ensuring funds are coming from a legal source and going to a legal source (terrorism & more recently any funds coming or going to Russia or being diverted to Russia).

I think citibank must have had a compliance check recently by the US government as they these delayed payments started about 2 months ago.

Hope this helps and just a bit of background to the issue

 

[SEB197]

Is the payment you are making to Tesla UK (as in a UK bank)?

In my business we make lots of US$ payments and all payments are being held by upto 3 weeks at the moment by Citibank who are the intermediary bank for ALL US dollar payments (as in all US$ payments have to be checked and verified by the intermediary bank).

Tbh its a pain in the ass but nothing to worry about....... its to do with ensuring funds are coming from a legal source and going to a legal source (terrorism & more recently any funds coming or going to Russia or being diverted to Russia).

I think citibank must have had a compliance check recently by the US government as they these delayed payments started about 2 months ago.

Hope this helps and just a bit of background to the issue

Yeah its to Tesla UK bank - The details they provide on their UK website when you log in to make payment.

 

[SEB197]

So i am now over two weeks after making this payment. It is still held with Citibank compliance. I have spoken to Tesla daily and they won't discuss it with Citibank. They tell me there is nothing they can do about it.

So I was going to pay the entire balance in the bank today as I am meant to be getting delivery on Friday but the bank advised me not to make the payment until the £1000.00 is resolved.

I spoke with Tesla again this morning and they jsut told me to email the financee dept (again) which I have.

If these last weeks are anything to go by it doesn't bode well from my experience so far.

I have emailed asking to they cancel my order for a model Y and refund me the £1000.00 once it is released. I couldn't care less about the £200.00 deposit.

I am pretty gutted really as i really likd the car but the whole experience has shown me how not having a proper showroom or the ability to take payment in any other way is not progress.

I am sure my experience is pretty extreme but it shouldn't have got this far. Tesla don't care about me as a customer at all during the last two weeks. I was told if I didn't make payment before the Friday collection I wouldn't be able to have a car until Nov or Dec.

But it's not even an issue i can solve. It has to be with Tesla talking to their bank but they have refused to do this for 2 weeks. No chance i am sending them £54k.

 

[GRiLLA]

So i am now over two weeks after making this payment. It is still held with Citibank compliance. I have spoken to Tesla daily and they won't discuss it with Citibank. They tell me there is nothing they can do about it.

So I was going to pay the entire balance in the bank today as I am meant to be getting delivery on Friday but the bank advised me not to make the payment until the £1000.00 is resolved.

I spoke with Tesla again this morning and they jsut told me to email the financee dept (again) which I have.

If these last weeks are anything to go by it doesn't bode well from my experience so far.

I have emailed asking to they cancel my order for a model Y and refund me the £1000.00 once it is released. I couldn't care less about the £200.00 deposit.

I am pretty gutted really as i really likd the car but the whole experience has shown me how not having a proper showroom or the ability to take payment in any other way is not progress.

I am sure my experience is pretty extreme but it shouldn't have got this far. Tesla don't care about me as a customer at all during the last two weeks. I was told if I didn't make payment before the Friday collection I wouldn't be able to have a car until Nov or Dec.

But it's not even an issue i can solve. It has to be with Tesla talking to their bank but they have refused to do this for 2 weeks. No chance i am sending them £54k.

Why did you send £1000 ? Did anyone from Tesla ask you to do this? I've bought two and always transferred the full amount requested a few days before collection, never had an issue.

 

[SEB197]

Why did you send £1000 ? Did anyone from Tesla ask you to do this? I've bought two and always transferred the full amount requested a few days before collection, never had an issue.

I have limits on how much I can send on my bank account. I can't just send 55k ish in one lump. Plus I have other payments going out so it would have always been in several payments. albeit larger than £1000.00

To do that I need to go into the bank. Now the bank have told me not to make payment until the £1000 is resolved.

Yeah I make bank payments every day for work etc and I have never had anything like this as a problem. But now I feel uneasy about sending 55k especially since bank advised against it.

 

[GRiLLA]

You pay the money, they give you the car, you seem to have got carried away and lost trying to see how Tesla and their banks internal process work unnecessarily. It's probably for the best you've withdrawn, Tesla works the way it works, if you can't operate without a personal connection then it's not the brand for you. You've saved yourself future heartache through servicing and warranty.

 

[Irata]

I think it's unfair to suggest the OP has done anything wrong, they absolutely have not.

It's been discussed on these forums many times about making test payments first, it's irrelevant how much that is.

When someone pays at any shop, they absolutely can ask for half on one card and the other half in cash for example. The shop has no reason to reject that request. Happens lots, especially those who need to keep certain controls of their finances. It would be wrong to call these.out. Some people are fortunate to have never needed to do this.

Same situation in this case, I see absolutely nothing wrong with paying in multiple transactions and many Tesla customers already have done. As to what the delay is here, I couldn't even guess.

 

[MashinBenzin]

The only thing I can think to try is to talk to your own bank’s fraud and money laundering departments. They may have insight into what has caused Citi to pause the payment.

When we make a payment there are a large numbers of systems that carry out background checks, it seems possible that yours has been trapped by one of these.

If, for instance, you were unfortunate enough to share a name with someone on a sanctions list, that would be expected to cause issues. Just one example and not saying it is this.

 

[GRiLLA]

I think it's unfair to suggest the OP has done anything wrong, they absolutely have not.

It's been discussed on these forums many times about making test payments first, it's irrelevant how much that is.

When someone pays at any shop, they absolutely can ask for half on one card and the other half in cash for example. The shop has no reason to reject that request. Happens lots, especially those who need to keep certain controls of their finances. It would be wrong to call these.out. Some people are fortunate to have never needed to do this.

Same situation in this case, I see absolutely nothing wrong with paying in multiple transactions and many Tesla customers already have done. As to what the delay is here, I couldn't even guess.

This is nothing like the example you give, if he was paying from multiple accounts and sent the whole figure then that would be fine. I would be turning up to collect with evidence that I had paid their account in as many different payments as I needed and expecting Tesla to give me my car as they had my money. He's only paid £1000 and not paid anything else. It's more like paying in a shop and putting 10p on one card then expecting them to show you their bank statement before you pay the rest on another.

Tesla's internal process between themselves and their bank is irrelevant, something for them to deal with, not something I would lose any sleep over.

 

[Rooster6655]

I have limits on how much I can send on my bank account. I can't just send 55k ish in one lump. Plus I have other payments going out so it would have always been in several payments. albeit larger than £1000.00

To do that I need to go into the bank. Now the bank have told me not to make payment until the £1000 is resolved.

Yeah I make bank payments every day for work etc and I have never had anything like this as a problem. But now I feel uneasy about sending 55k especially since bank advised against it.

If Tesla aren’t counting that £1k you already sent I don’t blame you for not sending anymore, as if it’s not showing up in the account, you’ll make the whole payment turn up and they will say £1k is missing. Tesla finance department is useless, they never even bothered emailing me back regarding an invoice mistake they made, it’s another case of nobody being responsible and passing the buck.

Unfortunately this is how Tesla operates when you have something happen which isn’t standard. They can deal with standard things well but if there’s a problem usually nobody will take any responsibility and good will resolutions seem to not exist.

Not sure why some reply with unhelpful advice that’s not helping anyone…

 

[GeorgeSymonds]

The test payment was a sensible idea, even more so given it's not reached the final destination. We could qustion why £1000, I sent £10, it's an amount I was prepared to lose if it was me that got things wrong, but I think its a moot point.

Without knowing the OP, the nature of the bank account he sent payment from, and probably a host of other factors, we have no knowledge of why Citibank have called in the payment for scrutiny. It has little to do with Tesla I imagine, Tesla aren't in the business of not trying to deliver cars, they want the cash, and if the payment was received by Tesla with the correct reference I see no reason why it wouldn't appear on the account.

What can the OP do? Without knowing more about him, who can tell? Russian connections, a cousin who's a Prince in an African country, no idea, and I wouldn;t expect to know on a public form. Go into a citibank branch and query it, take a passport to prove who you are, or call their compliance team? But it sounds like the money is stuck there, and nowehere else.

If the OP has access to another bank account and can send a £1 test payment, then they could do that to see if it gets blocked. Sounds like the ship has sailed and the OP doesn't want the car, that's their choice, but blaming Tesla seems to the wrong focus of attention.

As Rooster syas, Tesla are ok until things stray from the "Happy Days" scenario. It's a sense of frustration and being able to talk to them to see if they can ask Citibank would be a nice, I can see the frustration in not being able to, but I'd cut out the middle man and go to Citibank. And if Citibank say they've cleared the payment to Tesla, then take that evidence with you to pick up the car or start a small claims to get your money back.

 

[MashinBenzin]

Yep, Tesla are not in control of Citibank’s compliance processes (any more than I am of my bank’s as their client). Equally, they won’t release the car if the money hasn’t landed, again rightly so. The only course of action is to follow the money through the banking system. As the OP I’d start with my own bank as their client, and they should be able to contact Citi’s equivalent teams to follow up.

 

[SEB197]

update for you.

Tesla financial dept have been in further contact iwth Citibank about the payment being stuck in compliance.

Funnily enough that came onto my Tesla account last night.

Only issue is now I have to pay the balance before collection on Friday. They have told me if it doesn't clear my car would be delayed until Nov/Dec.

I have asked them this morning if I pay the balance and it doesn't clear by Friday would they delay my collection date until it clears. Hopefully they agree to that.

I made the first payment almost three weeks before the collection date as i wanted it to be all paid and sorted. This £1000.00 has taken 17 days to clear so I don't want the £55k to take the same. But it is out of my control.

I have no idea why it took so long. I'm a UK resident, UK bank account etc.

 

[GeorgeSymonds]

Progress at last. All I can say is when I paid the amount appeared within about an hour (during working hours) so even a payment on first thing Friday morning is likely to be with them by 10:00. You'll soon know if payments are now going through normally and quickly if you make another payment

 

[SEB197]

full payment all recieved. What a result!

 

[Toblerone]

full payment all recieved. What a result!

This u?

have emailed asking to they cancel my order for a model Y and refund me the £1000.00 once it is released.

I guess they didn’t read that email either.

Looks like there has there been some overreaction and backtracking.

I hope all is well that ends well!

 

[SEB197]

This u?

I guess they didn’t read that email either.

Looks like there has there been some overreaction and backtracking.

I hope all is well that ends well!

Yeah i was pretty pissed tesla just ignored the issue for 17 days.

I did email them on Monday as i had been getting no where and told them i wanted to cancel.

Then Angela in the finance dept actually made some proper enquires for me instead of just fobbing me off and explained what she had done and what was going on.

This reassurance that someone actually gave a *sugar* about it was actually really helpful.

She even emailed me twice today proactively to apologise how *sugar* it had been with Citibank and that the final payment had arrived.

So that was excellent customer service and really helped.

I was definitely at the point of cancelling prior to that.

Angela said they would refund the £1000 but told me it was very unusual what was happening etc so to basically hold on.

So all well that ends well.

Looking forward to the car now which is what a new car purchase should be about.