The supercharger overbilled me because it had an incorrect time! Tesla declined my complaint!

[arcos]

Hello,
I would like to bring to the public's attention that the Tesla Superchargers are not working correctly!
They definitely have a problem with time shifting/drifting and they are overcharging customers for off-peak charging.
Today (at night) I arrived at the Supercharger at 12:03 AM when the price after 12:00 AM was $0.15/kWh.

I started to charge the car and the dashboard started to show $0.15/kWh. Perfect!

My big surprise was receiving a bill for more than double what my car was showing during the charging process. They charged me $0.36/kWh.

I called customer service, but they denied my complaint. They said that it is possible that the time on the Supercharger is off by a few minutes so I should arrive later.

They also refused to check the current time (to confirm the time shift) on this Supercharge (not technically possible, they said).

If they don't have displays on their superchargers and my car is the only display for the charger, they don't print invoices, and they charge me a different price (then the car and the app show), and after that they refuse complaints..... how can I trust their supercharges????

How is it possible that this advanced technology can't count precious time?
Maybe they should invest and mount a simple display (as other companies do).

I even checked my activity/history in my Google Maps and it also shows that I came to the supercharge after 12:00 AM.

I'm the new owner of the Tesla car (4 days already) and I'm already disappointed. Especially, of their customer service support when they said "We can't do anything".

Did you have a similar experience?

Thanks,
Arcos

 

[arcos]

I already heard that Tesla's customer service is terrible.
Maybe Amazon spoiled me with its customer service, and I need to accept different standards

 

[fholbert]

I called customer service, but they denied my complaint. They said that it is possible that the time on the Supercharger is off by a few minutes so I should arrive later.

Tesla's reasoning:

Well, no one complained about being under charged!​

 

[arcos]

I should be happy they didn't do the same with the price of my car.
They could also double it when they sent me the invoice.

I am curious what else do their computers calculate incorrectly? I hope autopilots don't have the same issue...

 

[asterothe]

This is a valid complaint. I see the same issue reported here:

Marina del Rey Supercharger Incorrect Billing

I've gone to the Marina del Rey Supercharger twice now at just after midnight when the rate drops to .11/kw. I've started the charge a few minutes after midnight, car shows the rate should be .11/kw but I've been twice charged the peak rate of .50/kw. I finally figured out how to call Tesla...

teslamotorsclub.com

Ignoring this is not the best way to handle. However small the amount it does not matter.

 

[Big Earl]

What does the charging invoice in your account say? It won’t show the time, but it does show the date.

Tesla app > user profile > account > charging > history > find the date and select invoice.

 

[arcos]

What does the charging invoice in your account say? It won’t show the time, but it does show the date.

Tesla app > user profile > account > charging > history > find the date and select invoice.

View attachment 979871

This is how I know that they charged me for a different price than my car was displaying during charging.
The invoice says $0.36, the car displayed $0.15.
The invoice shows the previous date (before midnight), but I started 3 minutes after midnight.

So their system (on some level) had an incorrect time. I guess, it was a charger level.

 

[E90alex]

Yeah this is messed up. There’s no excuse for claiming “incorrect time” with how connected they are. If they are changing rates based on time then their internal clock needs to be correct.

I would file a chargeback with your credit card if Tesla won’t budge.

 

[GtiMart]

Not here to argue, just wondering. When you say you arrived at 12:03, what time source did you check? The time in the car, your watch, cell phone? Many time sources are not synchronized properly. Even the car sometimes isn't at the right time and I've heard that pressing the time on screen will force the car to re-synch its time.

 

[arcos]

Not here to argue, just wondering. When you say you arrived at 12:03, what time source did you check? The time in the car, your watch, cell phone? Many time sources are not synchronized properly. Even the car sometimes isn't at the right time and I've heard that pressing the time on screen will force the car to re-synch its time.

It was in the car and on my phone - both were the same.
As I said, the car also shows the price per kWh during charging. And the car was continuously showing $0.15 (not $0.36 as I was charged).
So in my opinion, there is no excuse.

 

[arcos]

Yeah this is messed up. There’s no excuse for claiming “incorrect time” with how connected they are. If they are changing rates based on time then their internal clock needs to be correct.

I would file a chargeback with your credit card if Tesla won’t budge.

It is not about money (I can pay $10 more for charging). It is about rules.

 

[E90alex]

It is not about money (I can pay $10 more for charging). It is about rules.

I never said it’s about the money. The chargeback is more to alert Tesla of a problem if regular customer service is not helping. You could argue they did a bait and switch or were false advertising.

If they see multiple chargebacks for similar issues then they might finally get off their ass and fix the issue. Which should be as simple as telling the superchargers to update/sync their clocks?

 

[arcos]

I never said it’s about the money. The chargeback is more to alert Tesla of a problem if regular customer service is not helping. You could argue they did a bait and switch or were false advertising.

If they see multiple chargebacks for similar issues then they might finally get off their ass and fix the issue. Which should be as simple as telling the superchargers to update/sync their clocks?

You are right - I should. But I don't want to spend any more time on it. So I probably just give up. I sent them all this in the survey after my call to support. But I don't think it makes any difference.

I will just avoid their chargers as much as possible. Even if it is the most convenient.

It is really sad that some companies that have everything they need to be a great company, and are just good companies.

They are still far from the level of Amazon.
Shame on you Elon

 

[fhteagle]

Credit card disputes were made for exactly this situation.

 

[MP3Mike]

You are right - I should. But I don't want to spend any more time on it. So I probably just give up. I sent them all this in the survey after my call to support. But I don't think it makes any difference.

Did you rate your charge in the app and let them know via that?

 

[arcos]

Did you rate your charge in the app and let them know via that?

View attachment 979959

I just did this. Thanks for this idea.

 

[ItsNotAboutTheMoney]

A thought: How long after the charging session ends do they bill your credit card?

 

[father_of_6]

Likely it pre-authorized for a certain amount (say, $100?) immediately upon plugging in, then captures the actual amount after charging is complete (unplugging).

Really, it's hard for me to understand how this could happen. The superchargers have to have an internet connection to charge cards, and they're likely running a unix variant, and they likely have a scheduled job for synchronizing to an internet time server... probably a daily job.

How much drift can really happen in one day? It's usually not in the minutes... it's usually just a handful of seconds.

Perhaps there's some infrastructure failure that they haven't caught yet (e.g. they host their own time server and somehow those chargers failed to connect to it).

 

[phxazcraig]

See if you can get a TV station to take uo the story and do some of their own testing.

 

[jjrandorin]

You are right - I should. But I don't want to spend any more time on it.

I dont understand this statement at all.

The reason I say that (and this is not ment to be a TMC moderator statement, I am posting as a regular user atm), is because you decided to spend enough time on this to create an account at a website you had never created one before (your account creation date is today), and have posted about it in this thread 8 times.

Saying " I dont want to spend any more time on it" after doing the above, when you could have filed a credit card dispute with less effort than it took to create an account here and post about it, is what I dont understand. You obviously care about it (if you didnt, you wouldnt have created an account, created a thread, etc). So, why is filing a credit card dispute a bunch of extra time?