6 ms·

Can anyone confirm it's this easy to make the purchase? I'd rather enjoy discovering that Nicholas Taleb was bullshitting here...

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
filoleg 7y ago
It isn’t. I was trying to do the purchase of the “acceleration boost” intentionally, and it took me a while to figure out how to do it, because the UX for it is unintuitive, and the whole upgrades menu itself is hidden behind at least 3 levels of clicks in the app.
- latortuga 7y ago
  Disclaimer: I have not purchased so I can't say for sure. The Upgrades menu is on the main list of options when you open the Tesla app on Android. I have not activated it myself by accident, but once you tap Upgrades, it loads the available options. There are 2 for me. If you "check" one of the options, it will be checked the next time you come back to the screen. After a checkbox is checked, there's a Pay Now link at the bottom of the screen. That's the workflow. I personally find it hard to believe it could be navigated completely by accident, but the placement of the menu option and the persisting of the checkbox across re-visits to the Upgrades screen make me think it's possible.
sxates 7y ago
My Tesla app on the iPhone has an "Upgrades" page from the main menu, and on that page it offers to sell me a Full Self-Driving upgrade for $4000. There's a big Apple Pay button on the page to make the payment with a credit card. I'm not sure what happens when you click that, and given this person's experience I don't want to test it, but it seems like they made it pretty easy to spend $4k.
- mstade 7y ago
  I've "accidentally" purchased something with Apple Pay before. Not because I didn't want the item, but because I thought once you press "pay" it'd take you to a page to specify shipping address etc. no such thing – payment went straight through and they just assumed the shipping address was the same as for my Apple account. I don't know if this is the same with all Apple Pay purchases, this was my first time using it for anything physical and some place other than an Apple property. There was no confirmation page, or any way to really regret the purchase (that I could find) other than contacting the seller, which I did to clear up the shipping snafu. (I still wanted the item, just not to that address.) I've never opted for Apple Pay since, only ever just using card payments instead. It's marginally more involving when you've got cards setup with a secrets manager, but it's worth it to significantly reduce the risk of accidental purchase. If the purchase flow in this case made use of Apple Pay than I for one find the "butt dial" explanation very plausible.
  - mcguire 7y ago
    "I've "accidentally" purchased something with Apple Pay before. Not because I didn't want the item, but because I thought once you press "pay" it'd take you to a page to specify shipping address etc. no such thing – payment went straight through and they just assumed the shipping address was the same as for my Apple account. I don't know if this is the same with all Apple Pay purchases, this was my first time using it for anything physical and some place other than an Apple property." Speaking as someone who temporarily changes addresses often, ew. That's not good.
    - pfranz 7y ago
      It turns out you can go to https://applepaydemo.apple.com/ https://applepaydemo.apple.com/ at the "Try it: ApplePayPaymentRequest" section and do a "Detailed Request" to try it for yourself. I think it's really actually nice that everything is there on one page and consistent to your platform [1], but I can see missing it and moving ahead by mistake. [1] Android supports this as well https://github.com/luruke/browser-2020#payment-request-api https://github.com/luruke/browser-2020#payment-request-api
joeblau 7y ago
It's that easy, except when it isn't. I tried to buy that upgrade last year when Tesla was offering a discount and I couldn't find the buy button anywhere. At the time I sent an email saying something like "I've never found it so hard for someone to send a company $3000 for a product." Seems like Nassim experienced the opposite of me.
aguyfromnb 7y ago
>I'd rather enjoy discovering that Nicholas Taleb was bullshitting here... I'll go with user error here, but who cares? What do they think, Taleb purchased boost on a whim to race someone at a red light, then asked for a refund when it was over? The fact that they straight up said "no refund" is crazy, and telling. I'll bet Tesla operates like an insurance company: deny all claims until it's too noisy to bear.
BinaryIdiot 7y ago
To be fair even if he is exaggerating this should be refund-able. So trying to figure out if he is right or wrong about easy it is doesn't really matter.
theogravity 7y ago
This actually happened to my friend over the weekend who just bought a Model 3 Perf on a lease, and will only have the car for a few months until he moves out of country. His phone purchased the $7k full self driving feature while it was in his pocket from the Tesla app. Apparently Android has this feature where you don't have to do an unlock / purchase confirm if the phone is near your your body. Contact to customer support said they can't do chargebacks and to contact the bank instead. He managed to get the charge reversed at the bank level on Monday. AFAIK he still has FSD enabled and we don't know what Tesla intends to do once the bank takes back the money from them.
- GhostVII 7y ago
  Reversing the charges through the bank is a bold move given that Tesla has essentially complete control over your car, and the supercharger stations.
  - theogravity 7y ago
    Yes, that was our concern as well, but customer support explicitly told him to go through his bank... (He asked me for advice on this entire ordeal because I'm also a Model 3 owner, but I've always made my upgrade purchases through the web UI and not the app.)

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

filoleg 7y ago

It isn’t. I was trying to do the purchase of the “acceleration boost” intentionally, and it took me a while to figure out how to do it, because the UX for it is unintuitive, and the whole upgrades menu itself is hidden behind at least 3 levels of clicks in the app.

latortuga 7y ago
Disclaimer: I have not purchased so I can't say for sure. The Upgrades menu is on the main list of options when you open the Tesla app on Android. I have not activated it myself by accident, but once you tap Upgrades, it loads the available options. There are 2 for me. If you "check" one of the options, it will be checked the next time you come back to the screen. After a checkbox is checked, there's a Pay Now link at the bottom of the screen. That's the workflow. I personally find it hard to believe it could be navigated completely by accident, but the placement of the menu option and the persisting of the checkbox across re-visits to the Upgrades screen make me think it's possible.

sxates 7y ago

My Tesla app on the iPhone has an "Upgrades" page from the main menu, and on that page it offers to sell me a Full Self-Driving upgrade for $4000. There's a big Apple Pay button on the page to make the payment with a credit card. I'm not sure what happens when you click that, and given this person's experience I don't want to test it, but it seems like they made it pretty easy to spend $4k.

mstade 7y ago
I've "accidentally" purchased something with Apple Pay before. Not because I didn't want the item, but because I thought once you press "pay" it'd take you to a page to specify shipping address etc. no such thing – payment went straight through and they just assumed the shipping address was the same as for my Apple account. I don't know if this is the same with all Apple Pay purchases, this was my first time using it for anything physical and some place other than an Apple property. There was no confirmation page, or any way to really regret the purchase (that I could find) other than contacting the seller, which I did to clear up the shipping snafu. (I still wanted the item, just not to that address.) I've never opted for Apple Pay since, only ever just using card payments instead. It's marginally more involving when you've got cards setup with a secrets manager, but it's worth it to significantly reduce the risk of accidental purchase. If the purchase flow in this case made use of Apple Pay than I for one find the "butt dial" explanation very plausible.
- mcguire 7y ago
  "I've "accidentally" purchased something with Apple Pay before. Not because I didn't want the item, but because I thought once you press "pay" it'd take you to a page to specify shipping address etc. no such thing – payment went straight through and they just assumed the shipping address was the same as for my Apple account. I don't know if this is the same with all Apple Pay purchases, this was my first time using it for anything physical and some place other than an Apple property." Speaking as someone who temporarily changes addresses often, ew. That's not good.
  - pfranz 7y ago
    It turns out you can go to https://applepaydemo.apple.com/ https://applepaydemo.apple.com/ at the "Try it: ApplePayPaymentRequest" section and do a "Detailed Request" to try it for yourself. I think it's really actually nice that everything is there on one page and consistent to your platform [1], but I can see missing it and moving ahead by mistake. [1] Android supports this as well https://github.com/luruke/browser-2020#payment-request-api https://github.com/luruke/browser-2020#payment-request-api

joeblau 7y ago

It's that easy, except when it isn't. I tried to buy that upgrade last year when Tesla was offering a discount and I couldn't find the buy button anywhere. At the time I sent an email saying something like "I've never found it so hard for someone to send a company $3000 for a product." Seems like Nassim experienced the opposite of me.

aguyfromnb 7y ago

>I'd rather enjoy discovering that Nicholas Taleb was bullshitting here... I'll go with user error here, but who cares? What do they think, Taleb purchased boost on a whim to race someone at a red light, then asked for a refund when it was over? The fact that they straight up said "no refund" is crazy, and telling. I'll bet Tesla operates like an insurance company: deny all claims until it's too noisy to bear.

BinaryIdiot 7y ago

To be fair even if he is exaggerating this should be refund-able. So trying to figure out if he is right or wrong about easy it is doesn't really matter.

theogravity 7y ago

This actually happened to my friend over the weekend who just bought a Model 3 Perf on a lease, and will only have the car for a few months until he moves out of country. His phone purchased the $7k full self driving feature while it was in his pocket from the Tesla app. Apparently Android has this feature where you don't have to do an unlock / purchase confirm if the phone is near your your body. Contact to customer support said they can't do chargebacks and to contact the bank instead. He managed to get the charge reversed at the bank level on Monday. AFAIK he still has FSD enabled and we don't know what Tesla intends to do once the bank takes back the money from them.

GhostVII 7y ago
Reversing the charges through the bank is a bold move given that Tesla has essentially complete control over your car, and the supercharger stations.
- theogravity 7y ago
  Yes, that was our concern as well, but customer support explicitly told him to go through his bank... (He asked me for advice on this entire ordeal because I'm also a Model 3 owner, but I've always made my upgrade purchases through the web UI and not the app.)