Cupra, the Spanish subsidiary owned by Volkswagen, has had to contact the first round of customers who ordered a Born electric hatch to inform them that a free service offer was applied in error and offer a full refund of their deposits.
He volkswagenown Spanish brand Cupra has had a stagnant start in Australia.
While the performance car company has amassed a strong order bank in its first few months on sale locally, it has been forced to apologize to about a third of customers who ordered cupra born electric hatchbacks after a free service offer was mistakenly applied.
At the end of December 2022, Cupra Australia announced on its website a free service offer on most of the new model range.
However, the deal was wrongly applied to the Cupra Born electric car; the offer was only for the Cupra León, Cupra Ateca and Cupra Formentor models.
Although Cupra Australia corrected the bug online within 24 hours of its launch, about a third of the 343 Cupra Born orders were received when the service offering was shown.
Cupra says it immediately removed the free service offer on the Born page on its website and then contacted customers to tell them about the error.
Instead of honoring the free service agreement, Cupra opted to offer customers a full refund of their deposit.
To date, it is unclear how many, if any, Cupra Born customers canceled their order once they were informed that the free service package was displayed in error.
A Cupra Australia statement said: “There was a temporary error when ordering a Born that included the limited time free service offer for León, Formentor and Ateca.
“We have offered customers who ordered a Born, having seen this error on our website, the option of a full refund of their deposit.”
Cupra says service costs for the yet-to-launch electric Born hatch will be announced closer to showroom arrivals.
Deliveries of the Born hot hatch cupra are planned for late March or early April 2023, pending any delays, the company says.
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