It's interesting that in many countries of the EU, or even in the EU as a whole, all this is simply not possible.
Not because of dark patterns being illegal, but rather because they would not be profitable.
As an example, in Germany:
First, a contract only exists when - in a somewhat metaphysical sense - two matching agreements are made. One by Tesla, one by the customer.
Accidental purchases regularly do not constitute an agreement by the customer, which is why before a court, it would be decided that the contract does not, and in fact did not exist. Here, it would be especially trivial to show that the purchase was accidental. Indeed it would probably be enough to have contacted Tesla after the "purchase". As an implication, Tesla would be forced to roll back the transaction and eat any costs associated with it.
Second, and of more practical relevance, there is legislation mandating that anything ordered online can be returned within 14 days, retroactively voiding the contract. In this case, the customer may need to pay some of the costs incurred with rolling back the transaction, although there is legislation for this. In this particular case, a software update, the cost would of course be zero.
I personally do not see these legislation as a source of friction. They are simple to implement and fair, and have no impact if one does not rely on deception.
As others have said, anyone doing business in the EU is aware of these matters. If these patterns do not exist in the EU version, then Tesla is employing these patterns for deceptive purposes.
> in the EU as a whole, all this is simply not possible. Not because of dark patterns being illegal, but rather because they would not be profitable.
I don’t understand this argument. It costs Tesla literally nothing to reverse these purchases. They’d still make a profit from everyone who doesn’t request a refund.
Their next argument would be on reversing the unlocks on the vehicle. Unless they're blowing e-fuses to unlock features I don't really see how it should be an issue.
I don’t understand. The screenshots seem to contradict what is being said here.
You have to enter in complete billing details to accidentally make this purchase. For Apple Pay I can only assume that the standard Apple Pay confirmation window comes up, which cannot be triggered in your pocket. If that window comes up and you authorize a $4,000 purchase I don’t see how that’s Tesla’s fault.
All the text that’s claimed to be hard to see seems plain as day to me.
The claim that one of the people seems to be making to Tesla support, that they never had the app open at all when this purchase took place, seems kind of questionable. I don’t see any way that’s possible.
Now, I agree that putting shit in your shopping cart by default isn’t a good practice but this isn’t exactly a shopping app, either. You wouldn’t go the upgrades section or checkout with anything unless you were looking to buy upgrades? I don’t own a Tesla, I don’t know.
I do agree that the policy of no refunds ever is nonsense. The software can most definitely be disabled or removed, and if Tesla isn’t using some kind of package manager, shame on them. The analogy of the house addition is total garbage.
See, what you need to do with customer service in these situations is to just tell them that they can give you the refund or that you’ll take
care of it through a chargeback to your bank. That’s their two options. Companies process your refund 99% of the time after you say those magic words (just don’t do this for things like your Steam account where a permanent ban will be a hardship).
The last thing: I had to laugh at the letter that started with “Dear Sirs.” Made the whole thing impossible to take seriously.
No, the issue here is that the Tesla App now allows you to buy a software upgrade package by just tapping through a few screens and the $4k package is added to your cart by default. They don't offer refunds (unless you're internet famous). Practically all other apps require fingerprint or password/code for purchases. Tesla doesn't - and their default checkout basket has $4k worth of unrefundable stuff in it, which is hilarious bad.
The EU/US is a separate historical issue where Tesla states on its website the cost of the vehicle incorrectly - the cost includes the federal tax credit (which you can reasonably expect to get) and $8k in gas savings (which is just a made up number based on random assumptions about how, where, when you drive). Imagine if BMW told you the cost of your vehicle including the gas savings you'd make versus driving a hummer. In the EU lying about the price of a product is illegal, so Tesla display the real price in the EU without their bullshit "savings".
The screenshots show that the app requires clear authorization for purchasing the upgrade.
Either you use Apple Pay with a fingerprint, or you have to enter credit card details and press a button that says “Pay $4000”. This is impossible to do by accident.
The credit card details are pulled from your account automatically and put into the form. I had to give Tesla my credit card number to place a deposit for my vehicle so I suspect nearly every Tesla owner has their credit card on their account unless they removed it after purchase. For owners who purchased without free unlimited supercharging, they probably want to leave the credit card on their account so they can use the supercharger network (the superchargers identify who you are when plugged into the car and the credit card on your account is billed after use, there is no payment mechanism on site). That’s why the “pay with credit card” “button” with no additional validation of user input in combination with a preloaded shopping cart with all options selected is dangerous in this instance. It is literally three misplaced clicks.
I think this could be solved by making the user input the expiration date of their credit card manually in the checkout screen. This is very common practice in ecommerce for this very reason. I also don’t understand why the pay with credit card button doesn’t look like a button. That’s just bad UX.
All that said I do think some of these reports have to be buyer’s remorse because I don’t understand how this extremely particular series of accidental inputs (pocket or otherwise) could have happened to as many people as are talking about it online. However, it does seem possible that Tesla could charge you up to 10K without your consent which should be fixed immediately.
I might have been miss informed, but I was told that it’s storing your credit card details so that if you’ve already made a credit card purchase from the Tesla app you could just hit The “Pay 4000” button on that final screen. And I couldn’t find anything in this thread that confirmed or denied that, though reading things on Twitter...
As an example, in Germany:
First, a contract only exists when - in a somewhat metaphysical sense - two matching agreements are made. One by Tesla, one by the customer. Accidental purchases regularly do not constitute an agreement by the customer, which is why before a court, it would be decided that the contract does not, and in fact did not exist. Here, it would be especially trivial to show that the purchase was accidental. Indeed it would probably be enough to have contacted Tesla after the "purchase". As an implication, Tesla would be forced to roll back the transaction and eat any costs associated with it.
Second, and of more practical relevance, there is legislation mandating that anything ordered online can be returned within 14 days, retroactively voiding the contract. In this case, the customer may need to pay some of the costs incurred with rolling back the transaction, although there is legislation for this. In this particular case, a software update, the cost would of course be zero.
I personally do not see these legislation as a source of friction. They are simple to implement and fair, and have no impact if one does not rely on deception.
As others have said, anyone doing business in the EU is aware of these matters. If these patterns do not exist in the EU version, then Tesla is employing these patterns for deceptive purposes.