Ontario owners: how long does it take to receive the government rebate?

Discussion in 'Clarity' started by bigbug, May 24, 2018.

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  1. cp4elroy

    cp4elroy New Member

    I just joined this forum too. I'm in the same boat as many of you. I'm glad I found this forum as it appears to be a good source of information.

    Ordered an egolf in October 2017, bought it in August 2018 and was informed on Feb 28 that my application was declined (same story: my vehicle was not on the ministry approved order list). It could just be my perception, but reading through this thread, it seems to me that VW is over-represented here!

    I too spoke with Sean of MTO. I've submitted a complaint to the Ombudsman. I'm also losing sleep.

    I have spoken with a Lawyer, but am not ready to go that route yet. I've been informed that the $14,000 is considered small claims, and that I have 2 years from the date of the sale of the car to submit a claim. It would be much better to get the money sooner though.

    I'm supportive of a class action suit if we can get it organized.
     
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  3. Mshark

    Mshark New Member

    I’m naive to legal processes, but I’m in pretty much the same boat as everyone here - 2018 egolf, ordered late 2917, delivered early Sept, 2018, just before Sept10 deadline. Not on the “approved list”. The only hope I have, is that I emailed MTO in early August - the requirement wasn’t on the website announcement at the at point. Using Wayback machine I think it popped up on Aug 31, but it was in the application instructions earlier. Anyways, they emailed me back and specifically said I’d be fine, if the car was delivered before Sept 10 - nope, rejected just the same.

    I’ve filled out a statement of claim, and I’m considering serving Her Majesty at the Attorney General’s office. What if we all agreed to do the same, at the same time? It’s only about $200 to file in court, and once served, they have 20 days to respond. Long shot but maybe we could swamp them in default judgement for some of them?
     
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  4. rbyow

    rbyow New Member

    Why wouldn't you also serve VW Canada as one could say they didn't fulfill their due diligence by submitting your vehicle order info to the MTO?
     
  5. kaps08

    kaps08 New Member

    Is anyone aware of any VW E-golf buyers that got their rebate? Was it just a handful of VW dealerships that dropped the ball? Or did VW Canada fail to relay the message to the entire dealer network?
     
  6. Rivek_egolfowner

    Rivek_egolfowner New Member

    As far as I can tell there was is e-golf buyer from Roseland VW in Burlington, and there are a number or e-golf owners who bought from Yorkdale VW in Toronto, which is my dealership. I think Yorkdale VW sold the most e-golfs in Ontario. I haven't heard from any e-golf owners who received the rebate; on the other hand, any e-golf owners who did receive the rebate are probably not cruising these chat rooms and threads for information. They may not be aware that this is an issue at all. I'm holding out hope that the Yorkdale VW e-golf owners will get reversal letters. I've been told several times by my rep that everything will work out and that it's just a matter of time, but I'm doing my best to mentally prepare myself for the bad news. I've read several comments that VW Canada is not involved and that it's a dealership issue. I wrote to VW Canada soon after that denial letter arrived and I never heard back. As the days drag on and my interest payments start adding up I'll hopefully climb out from under my depression and call VW Canada directly. I'm certainly not holding my breath that they'll do anything. I seem to recall someone mentioned that BMW Canada stepped up to help it's customers. I don't have any awareness that VW Canada is doing the same for affected e-golf owners.

    What this statement of claim business about for $200.00? I'd be willing to do that.
     
    Last edited: Apr 2, 2019
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  8. Jason1234

    Jason1234 New Member

    With all those eGolf claim, I wonder what happens?

    1/ I'm sure MTO notified VW Canada.
    2/ Did VW Canada notify all its dealers? I think the proper answer is only some of them.
    3/ Did VW's dealers fail to do their DD, or they just wanted to sell a car to you and worried about everything else later?
     
  9. cp4elroy

    cp4elroy New Member

    For those of us who have been declined, VW Canada is really the only "throat to choke".

    In my discussion with MTO's 'Sean', I was informed that MTO issued letters to all Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEM's) in July 2018. While the Province should be reprimanded for intentionally complicating the process to very obviously reduce payouts, I don't see them as liable. MTO provided VW Canada with a notice of the change to the program and that makes VW Canada responsible. If they were unable to comply with the requirements of the change notice, they should have said so.

    To date, instead of taking a leadership role in this matter, VW Canada has stuck their heads in the sand and pointed their fingers at the dealerships. We honestly don't know what VW Canada did with the MTO notice and we should not be the ones who need to find out. In short, VW Canada was fully accountable at one point in this process and if the process broke down, they must take at least as much responsibility as the dealerships. There is a golden opportunity for them to come forward now and assist us!

    I am still very interested in knowing if any egolf owners have received their rebates. If you know of any, could I please ask you to share? No personal details of course. My dealership is in Newmarket, and we are in this mess too.

    I'm seriously considering getting a Lawyer involved to represent our interests and provide guidance and advice. If I do, I'd like to get a sense of how many others may be interested in this course of action. Could I respectfully ask you to "Like" this message if you are interested? That will give me an idea. -- Thanks.
     
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  10. kaps08

    kaps08 New Member

    Hey cp4elroy, I also bought from the same dealership as you.
     
  11. rbyow

    rbyow New Member

    1/
    Below are 3 separate statements from the MTO. In general they mention dealerships having to do the work but they do also say vehicle manufacturers were notified:

    "If a vehicle was ordered on or before July 11, 2018 but was not registered, plated and delivered by July 11, 2018, to remain eligible for an incentive, it has to be on the Ministry approved list. Vehicle manufacturers were notified of these requirements and they notified their dealer network. As per the program cancellation parameters, vehicles on this list were limited to those ordered on or before July 11, 2018 by either an Ontario dealership or an Ontario customer or those already on an Ontario dealership lot."

    "Please note that dealers were required to provide Ministry of Transportation with lists of both eligible vehicles in their inventory and orders placed with manufacturers on or before July 11, 2018 by end of day on July 16, 2018 using the Ministry provided template."

    In a statement to CBC Toronto, the Ministry of Transportation said the July 11th letter was emailed to dealerships that were part of the Grants Ontario program, as well as manufacturers and associations "who were expected to inform their dealerships."

    2/
    I've asked VW Canada for proof they notified my dealer. I've been waiting 3 weeks with weekly followups. Silence is not a good sign.

    3/
    The owner of my VW dealership checked his email from July 1 to 15 and didn't see any notice. He has written me an email with this statement.
     
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  13. Jbird75

    Jbird75 New Member

    While the manufacturers and dealers may share some of the blame for this fiasco, most of the liability falls with the MTO in my opinion - in particular for anyone who purchased a vehicle/filed an application between July 12 - August 31.

    Between those dates, the ONLY eligibility criteria that was known to the general public (without doing some additional investigation, which really isn't reasonable to expect of the average consumer, as there was no reason to suspect an issue at the time), was that the vehicle had to be on order by the dealer, or on the dealer's lot prior to July 11.

    I have seen a copy of the letter by the MTO to the dealers. While it does mention that dealers should provide a list of vehicles to the MTO prior to July 16, it doesn't specify that failure to do so would make an otherwise eligible vehicle ineligible. If the MTO wants proof that the vehicle was ordered on time, what difference does it make if they find that out on July 16, or even February 28, 2019 (the day most of us received our notices of denial).

    Also, I don't know for certain when the manufacturers received this letter from the MTO. It's dated July 11, 2018 - so let's assume that they all received it that day. That was a wednesday. The deadline for the dealers to fill out the MTO's "template" was July 16 (the following monday). That's less than 4 business days for the dealers to review the letter, distribute it to its dealers, and the dealers find this mysterious template and submit the information to the MTO. Is it possible to get this all done in time? Sure, but seems like a very tight deadline to me.

    Also, am I the only one who finds it suspicious that there was no mention of the inventory list in any of the MTO's materials available to the public between July 11 and August 31? Or how about the fact that the Tesla ruling came out on August 27, 2018, and they changed the public "ruies" 4 days later?

    I think the government is being irresponsible, and downright dishonest. If they wanted to cancel the program completely on July 11 and say if you hadn't yet purchased a vehicle you were no longer eligible, they certainly could have done so, and if anyone chose to purchase an electric vehicle after that time would have known what they were getting into. As it stands, they were dishonest and led hundreds of people to believe they would be paying up to $14,000 less for their vehicles.

    Their current approach seems to be to deny most applications, and see who fights it. I spoke to the ombudsman and was told that about half the people he spoke with were somehow mysteriously found to be on the list after they "appealed". WTF? Why was this "list" of eligible vehicles not made public? Not hard to have a database of vin numbers that a consumer could reference before purchasing a car.

    In this situation, I don't see how a class action suit would be in the interest of the consumers. A single lawsuit would be much easier for the defendants to deal with, but dozens of small claims actions against the MTO, the car dealers, and the car manufacturers, would make it much more likely that they would want to settle than spend all that time and money in court. If you are going to file in small claims court, or in any court, please consult with a lawyer. I was advised by a lawyer that in order to file a claim against a government body, you must first give them 60 days notice. You wouldn't want your claim thrown out for missing this technicality.
     
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  14. crudest

    crudest New Member

    Hey - I ordered my eGolf in September 2017, received about 10 days before the Sep 10 deadline. Got my rebate about 3 weeks ago.

    I think the MTO fiasco is definitely dealer related - I live in Oakville but purposely drove to and purchased from Leaven's in London because 1) they had a car for test drives, 2) they had a lot of eGolf orders. They didn't mess up my application either and were the first to call me after the Doug Ford bombshell to keep me in the loop.
     
  15. jstephens

    jstephens Member

    We heard back from MPP yesterday on our "appeal" email to the MTO. The denial stands. Not surprising but incredibly disappointing nonetheless. We are figuring what to do with our dealer. My kids are getting ready to walk out this week to protest the education cuts. This government is making activists out of the whole family.
     
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  16. wootwo

    wootwo New Member

    Hi all, denial on our side is for an e-Golf from Downtown VW in Toronto, which I ordered in December 2017 and got plated on September 10, right at the deadline.

    Sean at MTO confirmed that other e-Golfs from the same dealership received their rebates, so it appears that for whatever reason our vehicle was omitted from their list. Sean said that in these cases they ask the dealership to resubmit the list so they can make sure it wasn't a clerical error on the ministry's side, but unfortunately Downtown VW through some exceptionally bad luck have lost their email records so they don't have the list anymore. Sean said he'd try to access Downtown VW's list himself, see if he can personally verify that our vehicle was in fact missing from it, but it's been a week and I haven't heard back yet.

    On the brighter side, we received word from the ministry today that the rebate will be coming through on another e-Golf in our family - this one originally ordered by an unknown third party but snapped up by us from Leaven's in London and plated on September 8.

    I'm interested to know more about the reversals people are talking about. Were these primarily on BMWs? Does anybody else have any information to share about tactics that worked in getting the ministry to change its position?
     
  17. wootwo

    wootwo New Member

    Heard from Sean at MTO regarding the only conditions under which a denial can be reversed:

    1. Dealership proves they tried to submit a list with the vehicle on it, but were unable to due to some technical problem with the template, or
    2. The vehicle was submitted on a dealer's list, just under somebody else's name (presumably the original person who ordered it).

    Our situation doesn't meet either criteria, unfortunately, so it appears we're left to pursue individual action against the dealership.
     
  18. CWilson

    CWilson New Member

    wootwo - was this in the past week? We haven't heard back yet, and are wondering who to contact. Our MPP isn't getting back to us either.
     
  19. rbyow

    rbyow New Member

    I found the attached review useful.

    Given: "Fighting the government is like fighting a nine-headed hydra: but you don't know which head has the brain."

    I'm wondering if it would not be easier only to serve the manufacturer for those that had vehicle orders in through them via dealerships. It seems several VW dealerships were not notified. Would it not be due diligence of the manufacturer to submit required information into the MTO as they certainly were notified? Or at the least ensure all dealerships received sufficient notice?
     

    Attached Files:

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  20. wootwo

    wootwo New Member

    Yes, I heard from Sean at MTO on April 3rd, a day after leaving a message asking for an update on our previous conversation.

    With MPPs it seems to depend on which one you call. Heard back right away from Bhutila Karpoche's (Parkdale-High Park) office, while Jessica Bell (University-Rosedale) hasn't yet responded. Will follow up again with both shortly.
     
  21. Mshark

    Mshark New Member

    As others have already received, I got my denial of appeal yesterday. The email was fairly strongly worded saying that there is no further appeal process, and the decision of the province is final. Not sure where to turn next. I have been in touch with both the ombudsman and and my own MPP, but I expect that they will only try to placate, rather than do anything concrete.

    I had very low expectations for this Government. So far they have failed to live up to them.
     
  22. Mrj

    Mrj New Member

    All is not lost. We can all sue the dealerships for gross mis-representation in the sale of their vehicles especially if the transaction took place after July 16,2018 which means that the dealership had not sent the list but kept the information away from us.
     
  23. 638RSA

    638RSA New Member

    I also got denial of the incentive application for my Kia Soul EV bought from Pickering Kia Bessada as MTO replied me that didn't have my car information on their approved order list. Actually, I have contacted Kia Bessada, but they just keep replying still working on it with MTO and trying. Also, there is also no response from Kia Canada until this moment as I checked with them if they received any notification of letter or email sent from MTO by requesting to submit the vehicle information.

    In the meantime, I have contacted ombudsman for this and expect that will have any updates

    Just wonder is there anyone here have denial also for your Kia EV ?
     

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