A man who returned his $116,000 Tesla Model X in 2020 is still paying for it 2 years later, report says

Isobel Asher Hamilton
Updated ·2 min read
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  • A man who bought and returned a Tesla Model X in early 2020 is still paying for it, CNBC reported.

  • He said he tried to use a policy Tesla had then of seven-day no-questions-asked returns.

  • The case is now in private arbitration.

A man who returned a Tesla Model X in 2020 under the carmaker's seven-day no-questions-asked return policy said he's still paying for the $116,000 vehicle more than two years later, CNBC reported Saturday.

In an interview with CNBC, Danny Roman, a biking- and hiking-tour operator in Southern California, outlined a lengthy dispute with Tesla over the car's return.

He said he decided to return his Model X after finding it had a shorter battery life than he expected and a door that stuck. He also said he discovered that installing a home charger for the car would cost 10 times what a Tesla representative had suggested.

He told CNBC that Tesla collected the car in March 2020 and that he was promised by a Tesla representative that his refund would be processed quickly.

But messages from Tesla viewed by CNBC showed the company argued it didn't have a seven-day return policy when Roman bought the vehicle.

Electrek reported in October 2020 that Tesla had quietly gotten rid of the policy, which was still viewable on the company's website as of September 30, 2020.

Roman told CNBC that at one point, he stopped making payments for the car for a month, which damaged his credit rating, so he opted to carry on paying. "Every time the money gets sucked out of my account, every month, I just cringe," he said.

Roman told CNBC he was in arbitration with Tesla over the matter. Arbitration is a dispute-resolution process that happens outside of court and is sometimes a condition of a contract of sale.

Despite the long tussle over his Model X, Roman told CNBC he's still a "huge believer in Tesla, Elon Musk, and electric cars," adding: "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."

Tesla didn't immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.

Read the original article on Business Insider