In a state of shock!......"this happens often and we are frustrated at the sales team level"

[Mobster]

That BS Dealership attitude.

If you are not in hurry, why you don't sale your car directly yourself?

Then buy new online.

Probably a good suggestion. Right now a bit in shock. The exchange this morning (even though I got 100 apologies) REALLY caught me off guard particularly with the wonderful past experiences I have had with every Tesla employee. It really was a mess. Several times I had to ask the "showroom" manager to stop pulling me into arguments and just give me the escalation information I wanted and had asked the "Owner Consultant" to give me. It's evidence to me not to love an object too much (my Tesla S) leading to unreasonably high ethical expectations of a company growing so fast. Very bad treatment. Live and learn.

 

[drinkerofkoolaid]

Welcome back to the forum. Your first post in almost two years is a stream of thought vent about a sales problem? Also, asking for Elon's email address on a forum? Are you really a lobbyist? (not clear if your name "Mobster" is intended to be a slight joke)

Did you try asking the person at your local Tesla showroom to speak with someone higher up about the matter?

* update: Your last post makes it sound like the people at the store/showroom wouldn't give you the contact info for someone higher up, which sounds strange.

 

[Mobster]

This is a pretty harsh statement to make against Mobster (OP). It's quite possible that Tesla had discounted the showroom car in Q4, and the pricing team made a mistake now that it's Q1 (they forgot to remove the discount). I am familiar with other, similar mistakes occurring, and it sounds like Mobster's customer advisor is telling him the same.

Mobster - you really only have two choices. Either pay the additional $15k and perhaps be annoyed forever, or escalate. If you have both the price quote and your trade-in in writing AND you made a deposit on the car, you should escalate to regional management and ask them to honor the price. You made the deposit in good faith, and you want them to do the same. You're a second time Tesla buyer. You should expect to be treated fairly and with respect as long as you do the same.

Update: I am taking your advice: Even though the manager was pretty pointed that escalation is futile....I like your thoughts (thanks for caring). Loyal customer who at NO time was trying to "screw" Tesla or one up them. I am KNOWN (as a lobbyist) for my annoying habit of asking the same question 20-30 times on urgent issues. "re run the numbers, call 'pricing team again' 'are you sure?' "give me the out the door number and I always pay cash (and eat beans for a long time...)" We stayed two hours after closing re doing all aspects to make sure with numerous phone calls off to some team somewhere. I will escalate per your advice. If for no other reason than it does help to vent! Thanks.

 

[Driver Dave]

Tesla is a 1000x better than dealing with a middleman dealer just seeing how much money he can skim off you buying the car you'd like to buy from the manufacturer.

But....

Tesla is a growing crazy company. I'm amazed how well run it is to begin with, but not surprised when something gets messed up.

Tesla is a car company. Just the nature of buying a car, especially if you finance and a bank gets involved, is always going to be a dicey proposition where you are not in control. Cash definitely helps this, but still... you love the car, you want the car... some people may take advantage of that.

The deal isn't a deal until you put a deposit down, sign a contract, etc. I never trust just getting a word from a guy. He may be playing you, or in Tesla's case, he may just have some wires crossed. So until you have it on paper, you have nothing from nobody.

But again...

Tesla is still a 1000x better buying experience than a dealer, that I never thought I'd see in the car world.

Thank god for Tesla, we may actually have a hope of ridding the evil dealerships from skimming money from the American car buyer.

 

[mbhforum]

You want attention to this? Make a blog including the audio and visual evidence and tweet everyone including execs, news outlets, tech sites, etc. big companies hate bad publicity and will do a lot to make it right.

 

[andrewket]

You want attention to this? Make a blog including the audio and visual evidence and tweet everyone including execs, news outlets, tech sites, etc. big companies hate bad publicity and will do a lot to make it right.

This will just put everyone on defense. If you want to be treated with respect it helps to be respectful. Someone, a person - a human - made a mistake. It happens. It's what people do after they make a mistake that shows their true character. And for people who were wronged because of someone else's mistake, how much empathy they show that person shows their true character.

 

[MrAustraliaTax]

...what the "out the door price is". Ok. Got it. They write it down...

Totally amazed at the number of people on this thread that don't seem to be able to read what the OP wrote. The price quote was in writing. Tesla are refusing to honour their written quote.

Frankly, Telsa these days have become WORSE than car dealerships in the way they behave.

And still the vocal minority manage to twist every Tesla screw-up and lie into a "you're holding it wrong" moment.

 

[brkaus]

Dang. What a let down.

Hopefully they will be able to meet in the middle. Was the price "too good to be true" compared to those inventory models listed on the web page?

Hard to tell if you were dealing with an idiot or someone with malice (traditional negotiation skills) in mind. If the same idiot reran 100 times, it would still be a wrong answer.

Not sure where I fall on this. It's not like were talking about the grocery clerk that rang something up for $2.50 when it should have been $5.00.

Regarding the trade in, I can understand that they may not like custom wheels. Yours are probably good, but never know what kind of low dollar wheels some folks throw on a car. Did they know about the wheels when they gave the initial estimate?

Sorry for all the anguish you have to go through. Hope you can come up with an agreeable solution.

 

[andrewket]

I'm still waiting to hear if you put a deposit on the car. That's when the written offer should become binding.

 

[mmd]

Bait-and-switch - Wikipedia
is a form of
False advertising - Wikipedia

Seeing this appear quite a few times on this forum now.

 

[Mobster]

You're right, it might have been a little harsh; I do apologize to the OP.

I still can't wrap my head about how a $15k price mistake went un-noticed until the next morning.

Mobster, can you clarify how exactly they changed the price by $15k overnight? Were the discounts reduced? Was the math just wrong? Was your trade-in further devalued? was it what @andrewket suggested with Q4 vs. Q1 pricing? etc.

No sorry. Cannot do it "exactly" because numbers and stories kept changing. We stayed TWO hours past closing as phone calls were made to "pricing team" - seemed like many. So..... I trusted Tesla through the confusion and repeated questions over and over with the main question being "how much cash do you want in the morning --- total total. (finance or cash) Customer Advocate/Adviser (salesperson?) even made a big deal about 1. You will get a great deal because there is big emphasis to sell these cars AND 2. "let's shake hands on this deal and congratulations on your new Tesla" Very nice young man that REALLY wanted to follow a process of continued calls (and emails/faxes?) to the "pricing team". (an hour before closing going on to just short of two hours AFTER closing! ) I have bought so many NEW cars in my 67 years that it really was starting to be reminiscent of what I had gone though in the past with the traditional sales person, and sometimes even a sales manager saying "I have to run these numbers by the boss!" However it was a world of difference from my first Tesla purchase which was also a demo - beautiful car. Per your question - no, eventually it had nothing to do with the trade in. That part is easy to set aside even though they early on apologized after giving me a "good news" trade in value only to cancel that out,and take less for the trade in - ok, no one likes to hear changes like that but I listened and agreed to their rational. (their words - everything over many hours sounded more and more like traditional "dealer" tactics 1.many trips to verify numbers by calling "the pricing team" -wherever they are; changing stories; and the next day when it was a big mess it went IMMEDIATELY to "will you buy this car?" "Will you buy that car?" while I was still in shock. We love Tesla and the brain has problems processing such a situation. Again..... a reminder of the "traditional" tactics. The "adviser" explained a number of times that mistakes were made by "the pricing team"; explained it is happening a LOT; and he would be happy if I escalated and got some action which would improve this ongoing problem (I have this in a recording AND there was veracity in this young man's narrative - I believe him). THEN.... the manager of the "store" called me and violated everything in my experience a manager should do to "de-escalate" a situation -combative - escalating instead of deescalating - suddenly blaming one lower level employee that I had witnessed doing everything he was supposed to do many times over - for hours and hours that night with the "pricing team" (I will do my best to cover this issue of being combative with a customer with Elon and district executives as a "training opportunity" for this manager and any other managers possibly if Tesla is overtaxed to the point of adopting new stress tactics.) I really dislike managers who choose to pick a patsy (when I asked the adviser what the manager had said originally - he told me the manager was on the phone getting advice on how to handle this - turned out to be find a single scapegoat and certainly not the "official" pricing team (adviser called them and our numbers "official"). The Bellevue manager then tried numerous times to blame the adviser. He did everything he could to get me in an argument to the point I had to ask him to stop it, and just give me what I had originally asked for that prompted his call - the escalation information...he still was a bit belligerent that escalation was futile (not even knowing what I might want to accomplish - but making assumptions). To his credit he did supply me with the two higher level management/executive contact info. And I have contacted Elon. Understanding he is a visionary tremendously busy with possibly little time for my recommendations.....even though he has helped me before on my first buy.

 

[Mobster]

I have become convinced that the only way to escalate something with Tesla is to tweet Elon.

YOU sound like you might have first hand experience! I am afraid you are probably right as the panic sets in to service thousands of cars, deliver 400,000 plus model three's, rotate demos (that is what my adviser finally vented to me on the record...that was a cluster frick now!)

 

[Mobster]

Bait-and-switch - Wikipedia
is a form of
False advertising - Wikipedia

Seeing this appear quite a few times on this forum now.

1. I see it escalating on the forum. 2. Escalating on Facebook testimonies and now 3. (after thinking people might just be over reacting -I will eat crow!) NOW going through horrifying treatment FIRST HAND....ok I believe the change is being felt.......

 

[Canuck]

a Registered Legislative Lobbyist - consumer issues

Hmmm... you're a lobbyist on consumer issues, and your name is "Mobster"? Just how do you go about doing your lobbying? I guess that means you could:

1. Use your consumer issues lobbying ties, and your recorded calls, to force Tesla to honour the deal; or
2. Use your "Mobster" ties to get some cement boots for the sales people.

Either way should get it done.

(#2 is a joke, of course)

 

[Camera-Cruiser]

What I am trying to understand here, is why were there hours and hours of calls about price? If there is a car on the website, there is a price, and that's it. Even internally, once a car comes in its piece is set. So I don't understand hours of negotiations with Tesla. This isn't two quarters ago when all bets were off.

So how did it get into hours and hours of negotiations?

I'm flummoxed.

 

[Swift]

Did you put a deposit down on the car?

 

[HankLloydRight]

I'd sure like to hear the other side of this story. As mentioned above, the prices are pretty much set, not sure why you needed three hours of negotiations to fix s price, especially since you say the trade in was fixed.

If the deal was that good, why didn't you put down a deposit and sign the MVPA on the spot?

There has to be more to this story.

 

[SageBrush]

The 3rd WOT was too much to scale, so I'll just say this:

If OP talks they way he writes I sympathize with the salesperson.

 

[HankLloydRight]

No sorry. Cannot do it "exactly" because numbers and stories kept changing

I think you can:
1. Original price and specs of the demo
2. End of night negotiated price
3. Next morning price and what changed

Without hard numbers to back up your story, it sounds very one sided. I think we'd all want the best outcome for you, but please don't withhold pertinent facts in the case which would help us better support you.

Finally, if the price is good, why the need to "negotiatie" for three more hours asking over and over the same question and getting the same answers, in writing? Just sign the contract and be done. To me, it sounds like you were hedging something and couldn't commit right away, and when the price changed, your hedge was lost. But that's just what it sounds like to me.

 

[Dutchie]

I just wonder how the offer was formulated. Was there a reservation written on there? if not just simply accept the offer. If they don't honour it than they have a problem and I would seek legal advise. An agreement is binding if an offer has been made and accepted, unless some huge and obvious mistake has been made - which is not the case in this instance in my humble opinion.
Let a lawyer write a nice letter demanding to honour the offer and see what they do.