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Elon MuskOctober 18, 2023
Man Tricks Tesla Into Giving Him 5 Free Cars, Gets 4-Year Sentence After Setting One On Fire
A Tesla scammer is now heading to the slammer. And no, he was not charged with battery.
A 34-year-old man who managed to dupe Tesla into giving him several free cars has been hit with a four-year sentence for the scheme after he drove one of the elective vehicles onto a frozen lake.
He then set it on fire in a fraud attempt to collect insurance money.
In other words, Tesla never actually caught onto the fraudulent scheme. He only got caught due to his bogus insurance claim.
Did he really not think that an insurance company was going to look into a car fire on a frozen lake?
Crimes like these really Hertz a company.
Michael Gonzalez was sentenced last week after pleading guilty to five counts of possessing and disposing of stolen vehicles that had crossed state lines.
"According to court records, in 2018 and 2019, Gonzalez executed a scheme to obtain five different, brand new Tesla electric vehicles by falsely indicating he was prepared to pay the full purchase price," according to a statement from the U.S. Attorney's Office, District of Vermont.
Prosecutors say Gonzalez found and exploited a loophole in Tesla's payment system and managed to get five brand-new electric cars worth more than $560,000 combined.
By Gonzalez "falsely indicating he was prepared to pay the full purchase price” he was able to exploit the so-called loophole.
He would enter bank information of which the accounts had practically no money, but the cars had already been delivered to him, as well as the certificate of ownership.
Tesla would deliver the cars and certificates of ownership to Gonzales without waiting for the transactions to be completed. It took several days before Tesla was notified that the accounts had insufficient funds.
This guy was really Volt swaggin for a good minute.
Prosecutors say he never intended to pay back the funds to Tesla.
“Gonzalez also submitted false statements to the Vermont Department of Motor Vehicles to obtain title to these cars. Gonzalez sold three of these vehicles to unwitting purchasers,” according to a statement from the U.S. Attorney's Office.
The Tesla Thief sold three of the cars, grossing $231,900.
When he was unable to sell a fourth one, Gonzalez drove it onto the frozen surface of Lake Champlain in Shelburne Bay, set it on fire, and submitted an insurance claim for the value of the vehicle, according to prosecutors.
Gonzalez was also ordered to pay restitution to Tesla of nearly $500,000 and also forfeit $231,900 to the United States.
According to Forbes, $150,000 is about how much each of the Model X Teslas was worth.
Gonzalez failed to attend an "examination under oath” after the insurance company asked him. Which subsequently led to enough suspension that authorities opened a case.
Although his scheme was pretty dumb, he for some reason got away with it for so long. And who knows how much longer it would have gone on if he never filed that insurance claim.
All I can do is, at least he wheely tried.
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