Credit card payments to Tesla I don’t recognise.

[Pants]

I picked my M3P up from Manchester on 22nd September. Since then I’ve had no contact with Tesla, haven’t bought anything from them and haven’t been near a supercharger. I have premium connectivity for 12 months.

In the last few days I’ve noticed three small payments on my credit card that I don’t recognise. On 27th October there was one for £5.40 and one for £1.44, and on 29th October there was a payment for £16.20. OK, they are only small amounts but I don’t recognise them and have no idea what they are for. Order history on my Tesla account page shows nothing.

Has anyone else experienced this or can hazard a guess what the payments might be for?

 

[MrBadger]

Supercharging assigned incorrectly to your account would be my guess Have you looked in the Supercharging history on their web site?

 

[Pants]

Yes, I checked that and there’s nothing there. I’m actually most puzzled by the payment for £1.44 - what can you get for that?

 

[spooksman]

A small amount like that is probably a 'test charge' for a new owner finding out how Superchargers work...

Sounds like a call to Tesla is in your future!

 

[MovingSouth]

And call your card issuer immediately and report it. Things like this can be the first sign of card fraud.

 

[Jason71]

And call your card issuer immediately and report it. Things like this can be the first sign of card fraud.

you are right in theory but unlikely to be fraud in this case. If you had stolen somones card details the last thing you want to do is associate transactions on it with a car you own. Too traceable. Almost certainly a screw up by Tesla.

 

[Alex987854]

I would check that the VIN in your car matches the one on your documents and App. Just in case.

 

[MovingSouth]

you are right in theory but unlikely to be fraud in this case. If you had stolen somones card details the last thing you want to do is associate transactions on it with a car you own. Too traceable. Almost certainly a screw up by Tesla.

I agree with that point. But I'd still report it. The card issuer does have the ability to reverse the transaction whatever the vendor says, if you show that the transaction cannot be valid. In this case, the car hasn't been near a supercharger, as shown by the owner's Tesla account having no SC transactions. Often, dealing with the card issuer can be far easier than with the vendor (and I don't find Tesla easy to contact).

 

[Jason71]

I agree with that point. But I'd still report it. The card issuer does have the ability to reverse the transaction whatever the vendor says, if you show that the transaction cannot be valid. In this case, the car hasn't been near a supercharger, as shown by the owner's Tesla account having no SC transactions. Often, dealing with the card issuer can be far easier than with the vendor (and I don't find Tesla easy to contact).

Again you are right in theory and I would not criticise anyone for doing that but to save the hassle of having your card cancelled and not being about to use it until a new one with a new pin etc shows up. I personally would give Tesla a quick call first. If they actually answer the phone, fess up and offer to refund I would probably, given the small amounts involved, take the risk. If not, or even if they say they will looking into it and say it will take anymore than an hour to get back to me, then yes I would call the card company and dispute the payments.

 

[MovingSouth]

to save the hassle of having your card cancelled and not being about to use it until a new one with a new pin etc shows up.

No real disagreement here. I was only pointing out the option of handling it with the card issuer. To be practical, I always keep three debit / credit cards going, partly to handle any of them being compromised (and the resulting problem you point out) and also to have at least one with good terms for travelling in Europe.