{"id":125,"date":"2025-09-28T11:42:02","date_gmt":"2025-09-28T18:42:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/teslaarbitration.com\/home-page-Tesla-Arbitration\/?p=125"},"modified":"2025-09-28T11:49:31","modified_gmt":"2025-09-28T18:49:31","slug":"well-known-youtuber-gets-shorted","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/teslaarbitration.com\/home-page-Tesla-Arbitration\/well-known-youtuber-gets-shorted\/","title":{"rendered":"Well-known YouTuber and online personality gets hosed on Roadster deposit."},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"wp-block-post-author-name\">Marc Dobin<\/div>\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-post-date\"><time datetime=\"2025-09-28T11:42:02-07:00\">September 28, 2025<\/time><\/div>\n\n\n<p>One would think that having a large online presence would earn some perks.  And it might.  Since I&#8217;m not a big time online presence (I&#8217;m not sure if anyone even reads this blog, other than maybe Tesla&#8217;s legal team), I wouldn&#8217;t know.  But I know a couple people in that space and it seems like things sometimes do work out for them.  That&#8217;s what makes this so interesting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/mkbhd.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"\">Marques Brownlee<\/a>, for whom Al Gore may have invented the Internet, apparently put down a $50,000 deposit on a Tesla Roadster.  I would include the link to how you can put down the same deposit, but I am not sure I would be doing the general public a service by doing so.  At the time in 2017, I think that the Roadster was more of a fever dream than FSD.  At least Tesla cars could mostly steer themselves in 2017.  Even now, I think that the Roadster has a less than 50% chance of being produced before my two year-old granddaughter can drive.  For all the people who gave Tesla an interest-free $50,000 loan, I hope I&#8217;m wrong.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But I digress.  I guess Marques finally realized that there is no Roadster for him in the foreseeable future.  In this <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tiktok.com\/@mkbhdtechclipz6\/video\/7554449491995282719\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"video\">video<\/a> he describes the process, which was not online, for getting his refund.  And guess what?  He didn&#8217;t get back his full $50,000!  They gave him back $45,000.  If he had simply put that 50 large in a 3% savings account, he would have $62,000.  Enough to get a Model Y (which I still wouldn&#8217;t buy).  One redditor calculated the value of $50,000 if it had been invested in Tesla stock for the last five years.  The result the redditor came up with? $700,000.  But I think they&#8217;re wrong.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I asked my new friend, ChatGPT, for the value of a $50,000 investment in Tesla on November 1, 2017 until today.  Here&#8217;s what I was shown.  I have not checked the math. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>On Nov 1, 2017, Tesla closed around <strong>$310\/share (pre-split)<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>50,000 \u00f7 $310 \u2248 <strong>161 shares<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>After the 5-for-1 split \u2192 161 \u00d7 5 = <strong>805 shares<\/strong>.<br>After the 3-for-1 split \u2192 805 \u00d7 3 = <strong>2,415 shares<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>At today\u2019s price ~$440.40 \u2192 2,415 \u00d7 440.40 \u2248 <strong>$1,064,000<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So, instead of making over $1,000,000 on Tesla stock, and <strong>NOT GETTING A ROADSTER<\/strong>,<strong> <\/strong>Marques got the finger and lost $5,000.  I say this in fun, but &#8220;this is why you should not get investment advice from a YouTuber.&#8221;  I genuinely feel bad for Marques.  Not because of the opportunity cost of a hypothetical investment in Tesla, but because he presents as a sincere and thoughtful guy.  I&#8217;ve watched some of his videos over the years, particularly when I was first getting into Teslas.  I don&#8217;t think he, or anyone, deserves to be treated with this level of disrespect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Think about it.  He loaned Tesla $50,000 and they <strong>charged him 10%<\/strong> for the privilege.  If he had bought the stock, and if the car comes out at $300,000 per unit, he could sell his stock, buy two Roadsters and still have money left over for a model Y, even after paying taxes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>$50,000 in Tesla stock = $1.06 million today. $50,000 to Tesla = $45,000 back and no Roadster.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The other interesting part of this is that if you make a reservation right now, this is what you see.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"365\" height=\"398\" src=\"https:\/\/teslaarbitration.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/image-1.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-126\" srcset=\"https:\/\/teslaarbitration.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/image-1.png 365w, https:\/\/teslaarbitration.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/image-1-275x300.png 275w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 365px) 100vw, 365px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Note the phrase &#8220;fully refundable&#8221; for the $5,000.  But it is silent about the $45,000.  Does that mean the $45,000 is non-refundable?  In order to find that out, you need to read the &#8220;Roadster Reservation Agreement&#8221;, which I have done. (There&#8217;s an arbitration clause there, too.) Here&#8217;s what it says:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"813\" height=\"126\" src=\"https:\/\/teslaarbitration.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/image-2.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-127\" srcset=\"https:\/\/teslaarbitration.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/image-2.png 813w, https:\/\/teslaarbitration.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/image-2-300x46.png 300w, https:\/\/teslaarbitration.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/image-2-768x119.png 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 813px) 100vw, 813px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Notice that it says you will receive &#8220;a full refund of your Reservation Payment.&#8221;  It also says &#8220;The refund will be returned to the original for of payment.&#8221;  Yes, it says &#8220;for&#8221; instead of &#8220;form.&#8221;  A company that is on the forefront of technology and robotics did not adequately proofread its own contract.  Maybe Grok would have caught it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So now my question is why didn&#8217;t Marques get back his full $50,000?  Was his agreement different? Or did he talk to someone who didn&#8217;t know what they were doing.  Either way, as of this writing, he&#8217;s out $5,000.  And of course, likely buried in his Reservation Agreement is Tesla\u2019s favorite weapon\u2014mandatory arbitration\u2014meaning even his refund fight gets pulled out of court.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Ultimately, this is a lesson for anyone, particularly a Tesla fan, who might be reading this.  Tesla will not do the &#8220;right thing&#8221; unless they are forced.  Ask anyone who has written to <a href=\"mailto:resolutions@tesla.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title=\"\">resolutions@tesla.com<\/a> since I publicized the email address.  Raise your hand if Tesla said anything other than &#8220;nope.&#8221;  At least you got a &#8220;nope.&#8221; Because when I wrote to them, I got an acknowledgment and nothing else, not even a &#8220;nope&#8221;.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Tesla has vastly upgraded the responses from the Resolutions email address.  I think I had an impact.  Now the email gives back all kinds of information on who to write to for what kind of problem.  But I honestly think that Tesla forgot about that email address until I publicized it.  I&#8217;m happy to help.  Now, if Tesla would only do the right thing and give people restitution for buying something that they did not, and cannot, deliver.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If you found this site and read this far, then you know the result of the arbitration.  Stand up for yourselves, people.  Make Tesla do the right thing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>One would think that having a large online presence would earn some perks. And it might. Since I&#8217;m not a big time online presence (I&#8217;m not sure if anyone even reads this blog, other than maybe Tesla&#8217;s legal team), I wouldn&#8217;t know. But I know a couple people in that space and it seems like [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-125","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/teslaarbitration.com\/home-page-Tesla-Arbitration\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/teslaarbitration.com\/home-page-Tesla-Arbitration\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/teslaarbitration.com\/home-page-Tesla-Arbitration\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teslaarbitration.com\/home-page-Tesla-Arbitration\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teslaarbitration.com\/home-page-Tesla-Arbitration\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=125"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/teslaarbitration.com\/home-page-Tesla-Arbitration\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":128,"href":"https:\/\/teslaarbitration.com\/home-page-Tesla-Arbitration\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125\/revisions\/128"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/teslaarbitration.com\/home-page-Tesla-Arbitration\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=125"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teslaarbitration.com\/home-page-Tesla-Arbitration\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=125"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/teslaarbitration.com\/home-page-Tesla-Arbitration\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=125"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}