Lease return excess wear & tear

[JoshG]

BOA also has a sell rating on Lucid, they just reiterated their $1 price target, and they shorted the company stock. I bet you there is more to this story than meets the eye.

Wow. So the company that seems to have sole discretion about how they handle lease return charges that angers large groups of customers and hurts the company’s brand has a financial interest in the company’s stock going down?

In fact they benefit in two ways - the operating unit collects these egregious fees from customers and the investment side of the house benefits on any stock decline this can cause given their short position.

If true that’s an incredible conflict of interest and Lucid has gotten themselves in a serious jam.

THAT, I believe is worthy of press attention and investigations. A few customers like me bitching about egregious fees probably isn’t that interesting to financial press but if your statement is correct and my summary of the conflict is correct, it’s a big problem for both BofA and Lucid.

 

[JoshG]

My advice if you get hit with a bogus lease return bill:
Check your lease agreement—odds are it has an arbitration clause. If it does, file for arbitration right away. In California (and many other states), the company—not the consumer—must pay the arbitration fees. That means Bank of America could be on the hook for $1,000 to $5,000 just to show up.

If they do not settle, you can still represent yourself at arbitration. The burden of proof is on them—they have to show the damage was beyond normal wear and tear. Not you.

And if you lose? All you’re out is your time—and you were on the hook for the bill anyway.

So this means I must go through this process before filing for small claims court action?

 

[Pragmatic]

I agree it's not a good look but I doubt the investment side of BoA knows or cares what the banking side is doing, and vice a versa.

 

[merveille07]

BOA also has a sell rating on Lucid, they just reiterated their $1 price target, and they shorted the company stock. I bet you there is more to this story than meets the eye.

This is exactly what I thought about and logged in to the forum to comment. Shouldn't this be considered conflict of interest?

 

[SaaSManKS]

I agree, you don't just stop, there has to be some noise around it; think about all the people who are just waiting in limbo for their Gravity's to be handed over along with this pile of , all the "I wish I would have known!"

I saw motor1 picked this up, hopefully this gets traction OR they completely reverse course...

 

[borski]

I agree, but Lucid should do everything they can to disentangle themselves from BoA.

I don’t disagree, or otherwise fix the situation somehow.

 

[borski]

I agree it's not a good look but I doubt the investment side of BoA knows or cares what the banking side is doing, and vice a versa.

Correct.

 

[Jay4_GT]

I just received my lease return bill. Despite my inspection report showing a total of ~1600 for wear and tear (3 wheels with curb rash and 2 tires), I just received a bill for $2700 for excess wear and tear. I called the number on the invoice and spent AN HOUR on the phone while the (very nice) lady tried to figure out where the additional $1000 in charges came from. She said I had a missing key fob (I didn't, and I have documentation showing I turned in 2 key fobs and 2 keycards) and there was a scratch on the front bumper (which is not shown in the inspection report), and somehow those 2 things totaled $1000 (she couldn't break down the charges beyond that, nor share any additional info about the discrepency). Eventually she said she wasn't sure why there were 2 different reports and she would get back to me "in a couple weeks."

I've leased cars before and it's always gone smoothly at turn in, I just can't imagine how a company can be this disorganized trying to sell cars at this price point.

 

[fisheral]

Perhaps BoA thinks Lucid's customers so wealthy that an extra $1000 or $5800 will be ignored.

 

[DBV]

I just received my lease return bill. Despite my inspection report showing a total of ~1600 for wear and tear (3 wheels with curb rash and 2 tires), I just received a bill for $2700 for excess wear and tear. I called the number on the invoice and spent AN HOUR on the phone while the (very nice) lady tried to figure out where the additional $1000 in charges came from. She said I had a missing key fob (I didn't, and I have documentation showing I turned in 2 key fobs and 2 keycards) and there was a scratch on the front bumper (which is not shown in the inspection report), and somehow those 2 things totaled $1000 (she couldn't break down the charges beyond that, nor share any additional info about the discrepency). Eventually she said she wasn't sure why there were 2 different reports and she would get back to me "in a couple weeks."

I've leased cars before and it's always gone smoothly at turn in, I just can't imagine how a company can be this disorganized trying to sell cars at this price point.

Just wow. Lucid needs to get this figured out quickly, as I am sure they lease a large portion of their cars, at least while the $7500 incentive lasts and can’t afford to have the negative perception of something like worrying about lease turn in charges. Needs to be simple, like every other car mfg.

 

[joec]

Perhaps BoA thinks Lucid's customers so wealthy that an extra $1000 or $5800 will be ignored.

That’s a really bad assumption.

 

[JoshG]

So this means I must go through this process before filing for small claims court action?

Not sure if I can shout "Good News"... but I just read my complete lease agreement, and, surprisingly, there is no binding arbitration requirement, no mediation clause, and no language compelling disputes to be handled outside court.

So I'm free to pursue this with a claim with small claims court if i choose to do so. (This is my lease agreement from my 2023 Lucid Air lease... no idea if they changed it more recently, but as of that date it was not in there.)

Interestingly, there IS language in the lease agreement that prohibits a lessee who signs this document from joining any type of class action lawsuit against the company, at least as it relates to the lease. That sounded fishy to me, but according to ChatGPT, that language is legal and has been upheld through multiple court challenges including to the supreme court. They can state this, and we're bound by it if we sign the lease agreement.

So... small claims: YES. Class action: NO.

 

[JoshG]

At the very least, you can see that the mods definitely are not quickly moving these angry and critical messages off into the deep subforum catacombs, they've been keeping these three active threads on the topic front and center, as should be the case.

Well, that one item in my list of items supporting the mods seems to have changed, or maybe i didn't notice where and when this discussion was moved previously. This is the more negative and active thread, and it has been moved to a subforum called "Ordering / Pricing / Production / Delivery". Not sure why, as issues with a lease return don't seem like they're really related to any of those 4 things. It's not a delivery issue.

But as a forum mod on a different forum, I know that moderating a forum and trying to keep things organized is difficult and subjective, and decisions are bound to make someone unhappy. So I don't assume it was an attempt to bury this topic. Mods have even posted links to the two remaining active threads on this on the one post they've closed, so that's keeping it prominent.

 

[fisheral]

Not sure if I can shout "Good News"... but I just read my complete lease agreement, and, surprisingly, there is no binding arbitration requirement, no mediation clause, and no language compelling disputes to be handled outside court.

So I'm free to pursue this with a claim with small claims court if i choose to do so. (This is my lease agreement from my 2023 Lucid Air lease... no idea if they changed it more recently, but as of that date it was not in there.)

Interestingly, there IS language in the lease agreement that prohibits a lessee who signs this document from joining any type of class action lawsuit against the company, at least as it relates to the lease. That sounded fishy to me, but according to ChatGPT, that language is legal and has been upheld through multiple court challenges including to the supreme court. They can state this, and we're bound by it if we sign the lease agreement.
View attachment 31082
So... small claims: YES. Class action: NO.

There is a tiny provision in the reservation agreement that Lucid uses to force arbitration, unless you have affirmatively opted out within 30 days of signing.

The lease itself says nothing about arbitration.

Once my lease is over and I pay their ransom, I'll be happy to walk away from this brand forever.

 

[JosephMR]

So this means I must go through this process before filing for small claims court action?

I see somebody posted above that there is no arbitration provision. But yes, generally if there is an arbitration provision, you must use arbitration. Unless there is a reason the provision is invalid. But that's a legal battle you don't want to get into over a few thousand dollars. Another exception could be if the provision excludes the kind of dispute you have with the lessor. Which I think for most of us is BofA.

 

[L-Dude]

I've been worrying about this a bit, which is probably silly since Judgement Day is three years away. Small claims court seems like a reasonable option. But if they try to screw me over, I will be done with Lucid forever, and I will tell the collection agency to go F themselves. I don't need credit from anyone, so they can ding my credit rating all they want.

 

[SonofaBish]

There is a tiny provision in the reservation agreement that Lucid uses to force arbitration, unless you have affirmatively opted out within 30 days of signing.

The lease itself says nothing about arbitration.

Once my lease is over and I pay their ransom, I'll be happy to walk away from this brand forever.

Ditto.... I haven't even had to turn mine in yet, but I've already got a bad taste in my mouth...

When I took the lease, I was expecting about a $5K bill, as i took the lowest mileage lease, and knew I'd put WAY more miles on it... but the $0.25 / mi charge was less than the lease with more miles (per mile)... I will now have growing anxiety for the next 6 weeks until mine gets tuned in, that I'm going to end up with a $10K bill instead, including stupid petty items.

 

[martianmango]

a car buzz article got recommended to me and this just upped my anxiety for my return in January...
hopefully this gets addressed before this, because this whole situation sounds awful

 

[thyname]

My lease return is in about 33 months (yes, months, 39 months lease from February this year), but this is making me nervous. If the issue is not fixed, I’d rather buy out my lease losing thousands in the process (very likely the residual value will be higher than market value), than giving a dime to Lucid / BoA scalpers. And I will never buy another new Lucid ever again after that.

I am probably overreacting, but that’s what I feel right now.

 

[HC_79]

My lease return is in about 33 months (yes, months, 39 months lease from February this year), but this is making me nervous. If the issue is not fixed, I’d rather buy out my lease losing thousands in the process (very likely the residual value will be higher than market value), than giving a dime to Lucid / BoA scalpers. And I will never buy another new Lucid ever again after that.

I am probably overreacting, but that’s what I feel right now.

I just leased a Gravity and watching how this plays out closely. If this thread is still going in 2 1/2 years time with the same issues then I’ll likely start to worry but I’m hoping Lucid/BoA figure it out WELL before then.

Just sucks the first round of people returning leased vehicles have to go through this headache.