Tesla was valued at more than $1 trillion dollars when we checked last week, but it is very careful when watching the pennies if the experience of one of our readers is anything to go by.
Last April, John put in an order for a new Tesla Model Y but has been left aggravated by the company’s failure to honour what he believes is a firm commitment made by not one but two of its representatives to give him €500 back.
“When in the shop earlier that day, the sales assistant specified to me that because my mam is a Tesla owner, she could share a referral link with me which would save me €500 on my car order,” he writes.
“When I processed my order by paying the deposit of €250, it notified me that my referral was accepted. However, when my receipt was emailed to me with line item pricing, the €500 referral was never included in the receipt,” he says.
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“Concerned, I then called Tesla (on a recorded line), where the agent clarified that ‘the €500 would be taken off my order once I proceeded to make my final payment which is when the app notifies me that a car has been assigned to me. “
Fast-forward to last month when the car was eventually assigned to him.
“Again, no sign of the €500 being deducted,” writes John. “I called Tesla and emailed them to voice my frustration on the shocking service.”
He also sent us the company’s long-winded response .
“We are writing to confirm receipt of your letter of complaint. We are sorry to learn of your experience surrounding referral credits when placing your new Model Y order.
“We are sorry if you feel the support fell short of your expectations and appreciate the time you took to share your concerns with us. Please be assured that we take all feedback seriously and have a team dedicated to reviewing and addressing each issue. Your feedback has been documented and shared with our management team, who will use it to drive improvements and provide additional training to our staff. Your input is crucial in helping us to identify areas for improvement, refine our processes, and deliver exceptional customer service.”
The response goes on.
“Please accept our apologies for any miscommunication received and for any disappointment or frustration this may have caused. Whilst we understand there may have been some confusion surrounding this incentive, we must also advise that the onus is on the customer, yourself, to carefully read and understand the terms and conditions of the program before using a referral link.
“Our referral credit program rewards both the referrer and the buyer with credits when a valid referral code is used at the time of purchase. However, our Refer and Earn terms and conditions detail the qualifying products, and excludes new Model Y purchases from this incentive. Although you were able to apply a referral code, it does not qualify you for buyer credits; only the referrer would receive credits in this case.
“We appreciate that the incentive may not have been clearly communicated by the sales team. Prior to the new Model Y launch, all Tesla products qualified for refer and earn credits, so we apologise for any confusion, disappointment, or frustration this may have caused. We have taken steps to address this internally and put measures in place to prevent it from happening again.
“Due to system constraints, we are unable to apply referral discounts or credits to products that don’t meet the specified requirements. However, as a gesture of goodwill and a sincere apology for the inconvenience you’ve experienced, we are pleased to hear that the Dublin store manager has offered you a €200 goodwill voucher. We appreciate your understanding that this is a final gesture, and we regret to inform you that we cannot apply the referral discount, offer any further compensation or make exceptions in this case.
“Once again we apologise for any disappointment and frustration this may have caused and appreciate your understanding. We recognise this is not likely to be the response you sought but must assure you we are responding to you in a way consistent to how we would support any equivalent customers and making an exception would be at the detriment to equivalent customers, which would be unfair under the circumstances.”
John was not happy with this response at all and says he bought the car “on the premise that I was informed twice that the referral would be accepted. However, I now find myself in a standoff with Tesla, [as I’m] refusing to pay the full amount and feel they’ll likely give the car to the next customer in line.”
We got in touch with Tesla and we have to say that while John might have been left miffed by the EV maker, at least he heard back from the company. At the time of writing we had had no response to our query.
