Elon Musk Cancels Stewart Alsop's Tesla Order Over Complaints About Launch Event

New submitter umafuckit writes: Blogger Stewart Alsop wrote an open letter to Elon Musk following a supposedly badly run launch event for the Model X. Alsop complained that the event started almost 2 hours late and was unable to test drive the car (for which has put down a deposit). In response, Musk cancelled Alsop's pre-order saying "Must be a slow news day if denying service to a super rude customer gets this much attention." Alsop, who is known not just for his prolific blogging but for his role as a founding partner at VC firm Alsop Louie Partners, compares his treatment by Tesla to that of BMW, about which he's also said some unflattering things as a customer.

Comments

Sounds good.

[MMC Monster]

Companies generally reserve the right to refuse to serve customers who are causing a disturbance.

This individual caused a disturbance prior to receiving his product. Refund his deposit and have him go elsewhere.

Re:Bet Alsop isn't used to being fired

[Racemaniac]

I read his post, and i don't see how it's overly harsh... if i went to some hyped up introduction of a new car, and it starts nearly 2 hours late, and i'm number 1300+ in line for mere 5 cars to have a "testdrive" in it... that's ridiculous >_.

Re:Might be illegal

[DrXym]

A person in the UK recently won a court case for something similar. He preordered a Porsche car, paid a deposit and then the dealer bumped him from the queue and sold the car to someone else. He sued for breach of contract, the judge agreed and awarded him the difference between what the car cost at the time and what it would be worth now.

I guess if someone could argue that the deposit was a contract (and better yet that losing the preorder meant a financial loss) then they could probably sue successfully.

Re:But the launch event did suck

[wjcofkc]

After reading reading, "hooting and howling over every word he said", I went and watched it myself expecting to be able to come back and call bullshit over an exaggeration.

Nope, your description was accurate. It was actually kind of strange.

old article?

[jlv]

Alsop's "open letter" is from Sep 30, 2015. The order cancellation happened now?

Re:Ha ha

[s13g3]

"No coupe for you."

FTFY.

Re:Bet Alsop isn't used to being fired

[Attila Dimedici]

NO, because a Disney employee would have intervened before that happened. I have heard enough stories to know that Disney is the master of customer service.