{"id":717167,"date":"2026-06-21T10:13:17","date_gmt":"2026-06-21T10:13:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/717167\/"},"modified":"2026-06-21T10:13:17","modified_gmt":"2026-06-21T10:13:17","slug":"bmw-dealer-forced-to-pay-5000-extra-for-used-x3-over-ai-chatbot-error","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/717167\/","title":{"rendered":"BMW Dealer Forced to Pay $5,000 Extra for Used X3 Over AI Chatbot Error"},"content":{"rendered":"

The biggest car news and reviews, no BS<\/p>\n

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AI chatbots are being embraced by management that wants to spend less money on employees, and employees who want to lighten their workloads. But that all assumes the software can actually do the tasks it\u2019s assigned correctly. A Canadian BMW<\/a> dealership recently found out that this can be a costly assumption.<\/p>\n

As reported by CBC News<\/a>, faced with a major repair bill, Zach Giacomelli decided to sell his 2021 BMW X3 back to BMW Toronto, the dealership he bought the crossover from used in 2023. After contacting the dealership, he received a text from \u201cQuinn,\u201d who asked questions about the X3 (which was at the dealership for the aforementioned repair work) and came back with an offer of $27,162.79 CAD ($19,385.68 USD at current exchange rates).<\/p>\n

\"2021 BM<\/p>\n

That was great news for Giacomelli, as the offer was the exact amount the 31-year-old owed on the car. But not long after, he received a call from an actual salesperson saying the offer wasn\u2019t valid. They explained that \u201cQuinn\u201d was a chatbot\u2014a fact that Giacomelli wasn\u2019t aware of during the negotiation\u2014and that it had made an error. The salesperson said the dealership was really willing to offer, at best, only $20,000 Canadian\u2014about $7,000 ($4,995 U.S.) less than what the chatbot offered.<\/p>\n

\u201cI feel embarrassed, and I feel angry that I\u2019ve been negotiating with this bot,\u201d Giacomelli told CBC News. \u201cIf they\u2019re going to be replacing their employees\u2019 jobs with AI, then they need to be honoring what that AI says.\u201d<\/p>\n

That is what the dealership did after it was contacted by CBC News. The offer of $27,162.79 Canadian was reinstated to \u201cdo right\u201d by Giacomelli, sales manager Scott Shadbolt said in a phone interview with the media outlet. Shadbolt explained that, due to a miscommunication by a human employee, the chatbot misinterpreted the amount Giacomelli owed\u2014$27,162.79 Canadian\u2014as the amount the dealership was willing to pay.<\/p>\n

\"2021 BMW<\/p>\n

In Canada, at least, companies can be held liable for mistakes made by chatbots. In 2024, Air Canada was required to honor a fare rebate after its chatbot gave a customer wrong information, CBC News notes. A lawyer consulted by the publication said that, even though Giacomelli hadn\u2019t accepted the offer (he\u2019d made a slightly higher counteroffer), it was reasonable to think that an agreement was in place because the chatbot set up a physical meeting, telling him \u201clet\u2019s lock it in today at 3:30.\u201d<\/p>\n

Initial uncertainty about the outcome aside, this all worked out pretty well for Giacomelli. Not having to talk to a car salesperson<\/a> sounds pretty good, from a buyer\u2019s perspective, especially when you can get free money from an AI chatbot\u2019s mistakes. But the push to replace human salespeople<\/a> at dealerships with AI probably won\u2019t last long if mistakes like this keep getting made.<\/p>\n

Stephen has always been passionate about cars, and managed to turn that passion into a career as a freelance automotive journalist. When he’s not handling weekend coverage for The Drive, you can find him looking for a new book to read.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The biggest car news and reviews, no BS Our free daily newsletter sends the stories that really matter…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":717168,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[182,181,507,297672,74],"class_list":["post-717167","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-dealerships","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/717167","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=717167"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/717167\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/717168"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=717167"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=717167"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=717167"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}