Employee who sent $30,000 off email was FIRED!

[bonnie]

E-mail from Tesla? Boy, talk about anthropomorphization! [but only sorta]

There is a difference between a company marketing email ([email protected]) and a specific person ([email protected]). We're talking about the latter case.

 

[Az_Rael]

If that Bed Bath & Beyond email came from a specific person, then yes. I would. More than once I've sent a 'hey, real quick - okay to share this info on the forum? I'll remove your contact info, of course.'

I agree, but @Krugerrand seemed to be taking an "all" emails from anyone (company or no) were private and not to be shared. I thought that was an unusual position so gave a counter example of an email I felt most people would be fine with sharing without permission.

But maybe I misunderstood.

 

[AnxietyRanger]

I have a question sort of related to this issue. I placed an order on an inventory car 9 days ago. The price was $145.500. It's a new car, not a car used as a service vehicle. Now, I'm from Norway so the prices from the US might differ a bit, but for a brand new P100D with similar configuration I would have to pay $154.500, so it's a 9000 dollar discount.

At the time this was the only P100D available on Tesla's inventory page in Norway. Four days later there's 12 P100Ds for sale. Almost all of them driven from 8.000 km to 15.000 km. I contact my local sales advisor to ask if I can change my order and pick another car. He then informs me that the price of the car I've ordered has been greatly reduced, and on the My Spec-page it now says $131.300. I tell him that if that's correct I'll just keep the order. He says my Final Invoice will be changed closer to the date of delivery. If not I should contact him.

Yesterday I checked the price in My Spec again, now it's $126.200. I check the other inventory cars for sale, and I realize that this seems very strange. All the cars at around the same price has been used and driven at least 10.000 km. I contact Tesla today and after about 30 minutes of back and forth on the phone I'm told that the original price of $145.500 is very likely to be the correct one. They don't know why I've been given increased showroom discounts and adjusted price reductions, but I'm told that it is highly unlikely that I'll be buying the car for anything less than $145.500.

Do I have any rights here? I know Tesla doesn't have to offer any other price than the one I got when I placed the order, but as far as I know they always honor negative price adjustments.


The thing that strikes me as very strange is that several times when I'm contacting Tesla the internal information they've got on the inventory cars differ quite a bit from the information I'm seeing on their webpage. They've got another inventory car that's only driven around 400 km that cost around $131.000. If I place an order on this one, are they obligated to stick to that price?

Well, there is the theory that Tesla might have been giving hidden showroom discounts to brand new cars (like they allegedly did in Q3/2016?) to drive quarterly sales.

Maybe that will change now that your case has become public or you asked too many times about it?

 

[RogerHScott]

There is a difference between a company marketing email ([email protected]) and a specific person ([email protected]). We're talking about the latter case.

So do Elon's tweets represent just Elon's personal (private?) opinion, or do they represent Tesla, the corporation? I'm not sure the specific sender of the e-mail is all that reliable an indicator of whether it represents communication from the company or the individual (though I would probably argue that anyone using a "company" identity for a personal matter is probably doing something wrong).

 

[mmd]

Can someone PM me Aaron's info - I am flying into Tucson AZ tomorrow and will be out there for a couple weeks for work. Appreciate it in advance.

If he is no longer at Tesla, his Tesla email won't work. But it's easy to find him on LInkedIn. Looks like he only worked at Tesla little over 1 year. He probably didn't learn all the hoops.

https://www.linkedin.com/in/aaronschenck/

Experience

• 
  
  Sales Advisor
  Company Name Tesla Motors
  Dates Employed Jun 2016 – Present
  Employment Duration 1 yr 4 mos
  Location Scottsdale, Arizona
  
  
  Ranked within the top 14% of Sales Advisors globally in 2016
  
  
• Hmm, top 14%! We can cross out one reason for firing, if that's true.

PS: I think, the damage is done, and his name is still there in few articles from which I grabbed his name.
MOD, feel free to remove it if this isn't appropriate.

 

[AnxietyRanger]

As far as I know, the email @AmpedRealtor got was generic sales pitch in nature, not i.e. a part of a contractual engagement for example.

I doubt any company rep sending an unsolicited (?) sales email has any reasonable expectation of privacy for that email, beyond normal confidentiality on the way from sender to receiver.

 

[RogerHScott]

Just curious, would people's opinions of this matter be the same if the "leaked" information had been something they considered bad rather than something good?

 

[jeffro01]

Just curious, would people's opinions of this matter be the same if the "leaked" information had been something they considered bad rather than something good?

Great question but impossible to know as it would depend on what the "bad" was... That being said, people always react differently to good vs bad news...

Jeff

 

[bonnie]

Just curious, would people's opinions of this matter be the same if the "leaked" information had been something they considered bad rather than something good?

I have checked for permission 100% of the time, regardless of 'good' or 'bad'. Elon's tweets are both personal (like when he's being playful or talking about AI, for instance) and can also represent the company (when he's committing to a specific action on behalf of Tesla). The difference, of course, is that he is in a position to take action.

Look at it this way: Every major company (and most companies, for that matter) have people that they've authorized to speak on behalf of the company. Usually that involves training on dealing with media, etc. When you have an employee who (perhaps with the best of intentions) send out an email saying ''$30K OFF!!!', that's an issue. That's completely different than if that same employee said 'Hey, some great deals on slightly used vehicles here, up to $30K off original price in some cases'. The latter is factual, the first is click bait.

At my last job, I was authorized to speak on behalf of my employer (Fortune 100 company, btw). My employees were not authorized to speak on behalf of the company in an official capacity. There were times when dealing with a regulatory body, I shared info that IF one of them had done so, I would have been angry. I was balancing what was okay to say with the perception that the regulator would take away. That was my responsibility and what I was paid for - and none of my staff were authorized to walk that tightrope. My point? Just because Elon is free to say certain things doesn't mean that every person within Tesla has that same authority. One has nothing to do with the other.

 

[AB4EJ]

Regarding sending out information on behalf of your employer.... most people who work for big companies know that the company wishes to make public statements (including notification of product discounts, etc.) only through the company's Communications department. I can see why Mr. Schenck could have been fired for making an unauthorized public announcement of a sale or discount, or whatever it was; however, in my experience if he did this because he was instructed to by his boss, the boss would be disciplined as well. (I'm not being insensitive here, I'm just saying how things are in the corporate world.). I can't see any relationship between this incident and whatever Tesla is embroiled in with the unionization effort.

 

[RogerHScott]

My point about Elon's tweets is just that the identity of the sender is not always sufficient information to distinguish private communication from corporate communication that just happens to have been sent by a specific, identifiable individual. Even the fact that Elon is empowered to speak on behalf of Tesla any time he wants to doesn't imply that he is always doing so, though be obviously has to extremely careful about being misconstrued. Unfortunately, there are high profile individuals working to erase the line between person and office every day...

 

[bonnie]

My point about Elon's tweets is just that the identity of the sender is not always sufficient information to distinguish private communication from corporate communication that just happens to have been sent by a specific, identifiable individual. Even the fact that Elon is empowered to speak on behalf of Tesla any time he wants to doesn't imply that he is always doing so, though be obviously has to extremely careful about being misconstrued. Unfortunately, there are high profile individuals working to erase the line between person and office every day...

Ah, but when Elon tweets, it doesn't matter if it's personal or public. He's on a public social media forum. Tweets are retweeted. When I receive an email from an individual, even if it were Elon, I would always ask for permission to share, regardless of content. Always.

 

[wallstguy]

This is a load of *sugar*. Anyone actually go to "Tesla.com"? Does Tesla advertise those vehicles that qualified for the discount as "used"? Or do they call them "Slightly used"? Or "Service loaners"?

Heres your answer: HELL NO. If you go to Tesla.com, you'll see them referred to as "NEW Inventory" with some cars having 10-15k miles driven on them already!

You're punishing an employee for getting the "truth" out there, while Elon can get away with saying things without repercussions?

Anyone remember how Software 8.1 was supposed to enable hands free ramp to ramp highway driving on AP 1? Anyone remember the browser update we were supposed to get last year? Anyone remember EAP functions being activated by December 2016? We still don't have automatic wipers for gods sake on AP 2 cars.

Anyone remember Elon saying FSD will show a differentiation between EAP within 3-6 months (back in January!) - 9 months later and EAP doesn't even work fully let alone FSD!

It's the tone at the top....if you're going to punish employees for such things, you better set an example yourself, or don't expect different from anyone else either.

Saddens me to hear this guy got fired for this.

 

[brkaus]

Saddens me to hear this guy got fired for this.

"This" is unknown to all of us.

Perhaps he sent the email to the contacts of a bunch of other sales advisors encroaching on their space. Or something totally unrelated.

 

[Krazaak]

I don't think there's any mystery to the showroom discount and I don't think there was anything misleading in that original email either, but it could perhaps be misunderstood by somebody not familiar with the inventory purchase process.

I just bought an inventory MX P100D with a substantial "showroom discount". Depending on which piece of documentation I look at, it's referred to as "showroom discount", "showroom adjustment" or "price adjustment".

My understanding is that this discount, applicable to inventory only models, is based on the original configuration price, discounted by 1% per month since manufacture and by $1 per mile. For example, my MX P100D was originally stickered at $147,250. It was manufactured in Nov 2016 and I purchased it on July 31, 2017, 9 months old counting the month of manufacture. It had 7,448 miles at the time the 1st quote was provided. My showroom adjustment was $20,600. Based on a 9% discount and $7,448 for mileage, it comes out to a $20,700 discount. By the time my trade was appraised, financing approved and I decided to put a deposit down, the final quote reflected a $20,900 showroom adjustment and 7,525 miles. I bought this just before the recent changes to PUP, premium interiors and the base price adjustments, so I don't know exactly how those are calculated or applied to the discount.

What I don't understand, is how Tesla determines which inventory/demo models show on the Tesla website new inventory search. The teslainventory.com site shows 32 Model X P100D or 100D models and tesla.com shows no inventory models w/ 100kWh batteries. 12 of those are new, with under 50 miles, the rest look like demos. The car I purchased actually didn't show up on either site, my OA found it for me.

 

[Krugerrand]

So if you got an email from, say, Bed Bath and Beyond advertising 50% off Widgets this Sunday and you participated in a Widget fan forum, you would try to contact Bed Bath and Beyond to get permission to share the e-mail first?

I wouldn't share the email, I'd delete it. But if you'd like to tell me where I can fish through your mail that the postman delivers, I promise I'll only go through your junk mail...

 

[stopcrazypp]

I don't think there's any mystery to the showroom discount and I don't think there was anything misleading in that original email either, but it could perhaps be misunderstood by somebody not familiar with the inventory purchase process.

My 2 cents is that the email he sent implied that these discounts applied to new vehicles in general (it reads that way for people unfamiliar with the inventory car program, which is most people). It didn't make clear this only applied to inventory vehicles (and only the ones with lots of miles on them would get anywhere close to $30k; if you dig through the CPO site you will see that is the case). There's enough vagueness in it to be misleading.

The media however just took that email and ran with it. The general public unaware of differences would just assume Tesla is generally giving a $30k discount. I've read articles and comments that said the same.

No offense to @AmpedRealtor but his commentary didn't help at all, but in fact supports the argument (by those unfamiliar reading) that the email was talking about general discounts (or even worse: a fire sale):

I just got this email from our local Tesla gallery:
...
Is this a fire sale? What are "showroom incentives"?

 

[Az_Rael]

I wouldn't share the email, I'd delete it. But if you'd like to tell me where I can fish through your mail that the postman delivers, I promise I'll only go through your junk mail...

That is very non-sequitur. What does security of my own account/mailbox have anything to do with an employee of a company sending out a sales/marketing email to numerous customers, apparently in error?

The OP had no way to know it was in error (or unauthorized), and the letter was worded in a way that stated it was a new announced program by Tesla. I would consider that spam, honestly, since it was unsolicited. Same sort of crap I get from local car dealers of whom I am on their mailing lists. If one was a particularly good deal on my prior car, a Volt, folks would regularly share that sort of information on those forums (including who to contact at the dealership to get said deal). It was a win-win for the salespeople - drove traffic to THEM to get their commission for very little legwork on their part. I have been told Tesla salespeople do get commissions, so I would have no reason to believe this was not a similar tactic.

 

[stopcrazypp]

I have been told Tesla salespeople do get commissions, so I would have no reason to believe this was not a similar tactic.

That's news to me. They may have quotas or performance measures (like required by some employers), but I have never heard that any Tesla sales person gets a commission, not even as a rumor.

 

[FlatSix911]

Speaking of a statement....looks like a statement from Tesla has been added to this article:
$30,000 Off Price Of Tesla Model S P100D Or Model X P100D Showroom Cars This Month

More nonsense from Tesla Marketing ... No Tesla customer ever has to be concerned about not getting a “good deal"!

Here’s a statement from a Tesla spokesperson on this story:

Recently, an unauthorized and inaccurate email from a Tesla sales associate was circulated that directly contradicted Tesla’s sales principles. This email suggested that Tesla was offering a $30k showroom discount, when in fact we have a strict no negotiation and no discount policy. This has been true since we first started taking orders more than ten years ago, a fact we reaffirmed last year. There are zero exceptions to that policy: every Tesla customer pays the same amount for the same car, period. That is true for Elon, friends and family of the company, or anyone else.

What the sales associate was referring to was not a discount on a new car from the factory. He was referring to a pricing adjustment that is made to test drive vehicles, service loaners, cars that had been damaged and then repaired, or old models, as these cars have wear and tear, mileage, or discontinued features. Naturally, the more miles, wear and tear, or discontinued features that a car has, the greater the pricing adjustment that is made.

No Tesla customer ever has to be concerned about not getting a “good deal.” A “good deal” is code for how a company takes advantage of a customer. We don’t do “deals.” We treat everyone the same. This will never change, ever