Tesla Reportedly Charged Some Customers Twice for New Cars, Leaving Them With Bills of Up to $142,000 and No Refund After Nearly a Week

March
30, 2021

3 min read

This story originally appeared on Business Insider

Tesla charged some customers twice for brand-new electric cars, leaving them with expensive bills, five people told CNBC on Monday.

Nearly one week after the double charges, Tesla had still not refunded them, the people said.

Tom Slattery, Christopher T. Lee, and Clark Peterson from Southern California told CNBC they had bought Teslas ranging from $37,000, the cost of a Model 3 sedan, to $71,000, the price of a Model Y crossover SUV with premium features.

They were all doubled charged without authorization, they said, leaving them with charges of $74,000 to $142,000.

Related: Elon Musk Suggests in Tweet That Tesla Could Be Bigger Than Apple in a Few Months, Then Deletes It

CNBC said its journalists had reviewed purchase agreements, correspondence with Tesla, and bank statements to confirm the stories. Tesla didn’t respond to CNBC’s request for comment, nor did it immediately respond to Insider’s request for comment.

Slattery told CNBC he received a text from Tesla last Wednesday saying the $53,000 Model Y he had ordered would be delivered via “contactless” delivery in one to three days. Slattery said he authorized the payment through ACH direct debit but the next day found that he had been charged twice, leaving him an extra $53,000 out of pocket.

Slattery said he tried to call Tesla and then drove to its store in Burbank to try to speak to someone.

“They told me to call my bank and have my bank reverse the charge. That was not acceptable,” he told CNBC, adding: “I had almost $53,000 unauthorized stolen from my bank account. And nobody, nobody has called me, emailed me, there’s no sense of urgency in resolving this.”

A Tesla employee at the Burbank store told Slattery that other customers had experienced the same thing, Slattery said.

Five days later, Slattery was still waiting for any sign of a refund from Tesla, he said, adding that he would refuse to accept delivery of the car until he’s paid back.

Peterson, from Los Angeles, told CNBC that he had been charged twice for a $71,000 Model Y after paying for it on Wednesday. The next day, a Tesla employee told Peterson when he could expect the delivery and acknowledged that he’d been double charged but urged him to contact his bank to stop the payment, Peterson said.

“He was insistent I should call my bank. So I did. They confirmed like no, the money is in Tesla’s account now. We cannot do anything about that until we hear from them,” Peterson told CNBC. He still hadn’t received a refund from Tesla on Monday afternoon.

Lee told CNBC that Tesla had charged him twice for a Model Y costing $56,578. Lee said the company told him that there was no record of a double charge and that he should call his bank.

Like Slattery and Peterson, Lee said he was still waiting for a refund from Tesla.

Two other buyers who asked CNBC to remain anonymous for privacy reasons said they had been charged twice for Tesla cars and were in financial difficulty as a result. One of the people said they had overdraft fees and hefty credit-card bills due at the end of March.