Danny Roman bought a new Tesla Model X and took delivery of the car on Feb. 28, 2020.
Three days later, he informed the company he was returning the electric SUV under the seven-day, no-questions-asked policy Tesla CEO Elon Musk had introduced.
Roman still hasn’t received his refund or access to the vehicle, which had a price tag of around $116,000.
Roman told CNBC he was astounded by the service alert. He says he never demanded any repairs.
The bank told him that he had missed a payment and that his credit rating had taken a 30-point hit.
“If you stop paying your bank, that will destroy you!” Roman said.
It ended up in him paying for the car he doesn’t possess.
Roman said that when he was testing the car, the car used up more miles and took longer than usual to charge.
Moreover, he stated that the vehicle’s falcon wing doors were sticking when he tried to open it.
Elon Musk stated earlier that: “To be clear, orders are fully refundable, even after you’ve had your Tesla for a week,” and “If someone really wants to return the car in good faith on day 8, that’s fine.”
After he filed a lawsuit against the company, he was informed his case would be sent into an alternative dispute resolution process.
This shows how U.S. consumers are pushed into arbitration agreements to purchase services or items as a matter of course.
For all practical purposes, consumers get nothing out of agreeing to arbitrate, he says. For companies, however, “Their motivation is to cap liability, and to make it harder for a consumer to win an individual case if they did something illegal,” Bland said. “It is such a secretive system that it’s much harder for consumers to find out what happened to people in previous related cases and makes it much harder for there to be a class action.”
Meanwhile, Roman had to lease another car to use in place of the Model X. He told CNBC he is leasing a hybrid electric Toyota Prius.
“Every time the money gets sucked out of my account, every month, I just cringe,” said Roman. “Besides that, I have spent over a hundred hours of my life trying to fix this, and just worrying.”
Tesla has still not accepted it as a return. He is being sent back and forth to the bank by Tesla.
“After everything I’ve been put through, I am still a huge believer in Tesla, Elon Musk, and electric cars,” Roman told CNBC. “I hope my story reaches the powers that be at Tesla, and they make necessary changes so this does not happen to their future clients.”