My $250 deposit [why can I not get my deposit back?]

[SolarBob]

I know that the site says non-refundable, but according to the web some folks are getting the deposit back

I am a very loyal Tesla customer installing last year 48 panels, and 2 PW's.
It costs a lot of money.

It has been a very good customer experience.

Anyway, my wife's car, the lease expires in March, this month.
She can NOT be without a car for personal reasons.

So in December I spoke to a Tesla auto advisor and told him this. At that time delivery from the Tesla Web site for the Model 3 was quoted March.

He advised to place the order. I did and paid my $250.

Anyway we are in March and now delivery is quoted in May. After test drivng the car, the Tesla dealership near me told me Tesla was building to order, and that supply chain issues were causing delays. There were no guarantees on delivery the car could show up earlier or be even further delayed.

We had no choice but to cancel. We had to go get another car.

I thought it was the right thing to do to cancelling and open up my order position.

This is not right. Is there anyway to get the refund returned.

This was not our fault.

I thought Tesla was a more ethical company than this!

 

[BGaffigan]

You placed an order with a non refundable fee with an estimated delivery date. Not sure there is any valid complaint here.

 

[tedzilla88]

This seems pretty common I've seen. Some people have similar stories and are selling their reservations for the $250 deposit they put in to people who can wait.

 

[MaskedRacerX]

I'd email and/or call, explain the situation, tell them how long ago you placed the order. I get what @BGaffigan is saying, and certainly that is the "letter of the law" so to speak, but sometimes a business needs to be flexible with the situation. If not, maybe you can sell your reservation (like you mentioned).

Good luck!

 

[jjrandorin]

Sounds to me like OP already canceled, so they wouldnt be able to sell the reservation. Posting here doesnt do anything but vent, though. OP should have gone in person to a tesla location, explained the issue and found out if someone could either help them get delivery sooner, or put in a request for an exception to the "no refund" policy.

On a personal note, I am with OP up to "I thought tesla was a more ethical company than this!" statement. There are no "ethics" being violated here, when its explained up front that the order fee is non refundable.

While refunding someone in this instance might be "the right thing to do" it definitely opens up a "slippery slope" of excuses, many valid, some would be less so. So, I agree with @MaskedRacerX that I would have tried to escalate this locally with them, but I certainly wouldnt have canceled without talking to them unless I was ok with not getting that money back (and I would have been ok with not getting that money back because thats what I agreed to when I ordered with a non refundable order fee.


Tesla is very careful to not call this a deposit, even though thats what people think of it as, and is also extremely clear in their order information that they feel they have earned that money when you place an order and they manage that order. Whether one agrees with that is another story, but there are no ethics issues here to me, just one where the OP wants an exception to already agreed upon rules (which I understand).

 

[MaskedRacerX]

Oh, duh, I read that as "We have no choice but to cancel ...", like I was reading this as an "If we do this ..." post.

 

[Jmauld]

You can sell your deposit? How difficult is that to do?

 

[jjrandorin]

You can sell your deposit? How difficult is that to do?

Teslas contract does not allow that, but people do it anyway, mostly by giving away the entire tesla account the reservation is on. If you have other things in your tesla account, from what I read here, it requires some degree of trust between the two parties.

Since teslas contract says you are not supposed to do it, its not something I personally would ever consider, but the number of people posting here "WTS reservation to XXX" tells me that its possible at least at some point, till tesla shuts it down. I am hopeful that sometime soon we stop allowing people to post about that here, though.

 

[Cybermoose]

Supply chain issues have been going on for quite a while and have been somewhat unpredictable. While i'm sure Tesla is doing their best to meet the estimated delivery dates, it's really not possibly for them to know what will happen.

Personally if I absolutely needed a car with no downtime between a lease ending and getting a new car, I would not go with a car that only has an estimated delivery date for the same month that the lease ends.

Now you are saying you were advised to place the order and that's probably why you are upset that you aren't getting a refund. However I still see nothing wrong with what Tesla did. I don't even think it was just someone trying to push you to place an order, they had the exact same information as what you had and that person was just doing their job with the information they had.

Tesla isn't being unethical here, they laid out their terms very clearly.
This is your fault, not trying to be a dick, but the situation is on you. I don't see any situation where someone could get an estimated delivery date and not see any possibility that the car might be delayed. If you thought at all that the car might be delayed and still placed the order, you knew the risks. If you didn't think that there was any possibility that the car could be delayed...i'd still think it would be on you for not doing research before agreeing to the terms of ordering an expensive car.

 

[cwerdna]

The non-refundable possible is because they can and can get away with it. It's free $ for them but at the same time takes some variability/guesswork out about whether someone has "skin in the game" vs. who doesn't, likely reducing their cancel/people who don't follow thru rate.

Back to the can get away with it, it doesn't seem like it's turning away that many people from putting in their orders anyway.

 

[GtiMart]

I see a deposit as you putting some money upfront, some "skin in the game", to show that you are serious about your reservation. If there was no money on the line, millions could reserve and then cancel months later. How can a company plan its production if people change their mind all the time. With the deposit, less people will cancel and if they do, at least you get a minimal compensation. I absolutely do not understand the principle of refundable deposits.
My opinion only.

 

[jjrandorin]

I see a deposit as you putting some money upfront, some "skin in the game", to show that you are serious about your reservation. If there was no money on the line, millions could reserve and then cancel months later. How can a company plan its production if people change their mind all the time. With the deposit, less people will cancel and if they do, at least you get a minimal compensation. I absolutely do not understand the principle of refundable deposits.
My opinion only.

Most deposits are refundable (in many cases the law stipulates they have to be). I realize we are talking semantics here, but thats why Tesla is very careful to NOT call this a deposit. They call it an order fee, and specifically spell out that they feel they have earned that fee by managing the logistics around an order, regardless of whether a person actually takes delivery of said order or not.

Again, before someone points it out, I do realize we are talking semantics / wordplay here, but in this case, someone could rightly dispute "they wont give me back my deposit", possibly legally, but an order fee they spell out they feel they have earned (in the contract one e-signs by placing an order) would likely be a lot harder (and cost more than $250 to dispute even if that was possible).

I am not a lawyer, nor did I stay in a holiday inn express any time in the recent past, but am fairly sure thats why tesla is careful not to call this a deposit, and we likely should not call it one either, lest we confuse people who start researching "why is my deposit not refundable" and then get confused.

 

[GtiMart]

Ah, that's an interesting point. You could say I see that amount as a reservation fee, not a deposit. In that case, I don't understand the value of a deposit system if it's reimbursed, but maybe that's just me.

 

[scrapps]

It's too late now for the OP, but what I suggest other people do in this situation is to purchase a used car in the interim, then trade in/private sell upon confirmed delivery date of new car. This way you are getting the car you want and covering the gap in carlessness.

 

[jjrandorin]

It's too late now for the OP, but what I suggest other people do in this situation is to purchase a used car in the interim, then trade in/private sell upon confirmed delivery date of new car. This way you are getting the car you want and covering the gap in carlessness.

I would normally say "no way this works out financially, with taxes etc", but in todays used car market, I actually agree with you that this could work. An even better situation for the OP would have been to contact the company his leased car was with, and ask to extend the lease. Given the market, its likely they could have extended it for at least a month, and maybe longer, "kicking the can down the road" so to speak.

They also could have simply bought out their leased car. If you have a leased car thats expiring right now, it likely was leased either 2 years, or 3 years ago, and there was likely equity in it that the OP could capture.

I just did this exact thing (buy out my BMW lease in dec of 2021, then turn around and sell the car when my wifes ordered model Y came in).

That would have been a much better solution if the OP actually wanted to wait for a model Y, as then there would have been no "gap" in having a car, they would have likely been able to make some money (even given paying taxes etc on purchasing the new car) and that buy out can be financed so one doesnt have to come up with the entire cash for the lease ballon if they dont want to.

No idea why the OP didnt choose one of those options above, other than they decided they didnt want the new tesla after all, which is fine of course, but there were multiple ways to cover the time gap they could have chosen, but didnt.

 

[dmurphy]

I would normally say "no way this works out financially, with taxes etc", but in todays used car market, I actually agree with you that this could work. An even better situation for the OP would have been to contact the company his leased car was with, and ask to extend the lease. Given the market, its likely they could have extended it for at least a month, and maybe longer, "kicking the can down the road" so to speak.

They also could have simply bought out their leased car. If you have a leased car thats expiring right now, it likely was leased either 2 years, or 3 years ago, and there was likely equity in it that the OP could capture.

I just did this exact thing (buy out my BMW lease in dec of 2021, then turn around and sell the car when my wifes ordered model Y came in).

That would have been a much better solution if the OP actually wanted to wait for a model Y, as then there would have been no "gap" in having a car, they would have likely been able to make some money (even given paying taxes etc on purchasing the new car) and that buy out can be financed so one doesnt have to come up with the entire cash for the lease ballon if they dont want to.

No idea why the OP didnt choose one of those options above, other than they decided they didnt want the new tesla after all, which is fine of course, but there were multiple ways to cover the time gap they could have chosen, but didnt.

It’s entirely possible OP didn’t know or wasn’t familiar with all of the lease options available.

I know you’re a deep leasing expert so none of this is new, but the leasing companies are opaque at best when it comes to financially advantageous options. They do a good job spelling out the bare minimum - “Lease a car from us and stay on the treadmill until we tell you it’s time to lease the next car from us. Rinse & repeat.”

I just had this exact convo with my brother around his Hyundai lease. He has some minimal damage to the rear quarter panel and was concerned about it. I told him to ground it early, flip the lease and avoid filing an insurance claim. Had no idea those things were possible, or even advantageous.

Leasing is complex; there are a lot of moving parts and it’s not always clear what options you have. Just the tax situation alone gets complex.

So I sympathize with the OP; there’s really nobody that’ll guide you through it aside from forums like these.

Heck, there’s a great side gig for you — “Personal Leasing Consultant”!

 

[Trbotime]

You should have reached out to the leasing finance company and asked to extend the lease. I leased a Q50 and the lease was up in February and my M3LR wasn't due to arrive until March. I called them and asked for an extension and they had no issues with that. I paid another payment (residual won't go down) and I had the vehicle for another month. Just last week I was notified my M3LR was ready for pickup. I then sold the car out of lease to an Infiniti dealer, pocketed some cash and the next day picked up my M3LR. I could have extended the lease another month if needed.

 

[heavyD]

$250 isn't a lot of money in the big picture so I wouldn't lose a lot of sleep over forfeiting it but I'm not sure why it has to be non-refundable. First of all Tesla is selling every car they make so that vehicle will simply go to another buyer. Second of all there's only the option of exterior/interior colors so it's not like Tesla gets stuck with an unconventional build if the buyer opts out. I recently had $500 down on a Bronco that was spec'd out to my tastes (there are lots of options for these vehicles) and when I cancelled as I got my money back no questions asked.

 

[GtiMart]

But just for my personal understanding, what's the use of asking for 500$ if they give it back to you no questions asked? Apart from the fact you're lending them 500$ for a little while, they gain nothing at all. And it doesn't prevent most people from reserving something they don't really want just in case they change their mind since they know they can get the money back. I just don't see the value in it so I'm hoping someone can enlighten me.

 

[heavyD]

But just for my personal understanding, what's the use of asking for 500$ if they give it back to you no questions asked? Apart from the fact you're lending them 500$ for a little while, they gain nothing at all. And it doesn't prevent most people from reserving something they don't really want just in case they change their mind since they know they can get the money back. I just don't see the value in it so I'm hoping someone can enlighten me.

Letting the dealer hold $500 of your money at least shows that you are serious and invested. By law I don't think the dealer has to refund the money on most auto purchases unless it is clearly written into the agreement but most of them do when they know they can move it. If you order say an $80k BMW M3 in one of the uglier individual colors you can understand why the dealer may not want to be left with having to sell that on the lot.