One Ford Mustang Mach-E owner in California is filing a long-shot class-action lawsuit against Ford. The suit alleges that the automaker charged him more than the value of the vehicle due to the Trump Administration's tariffs.
Since then, Ford has received refunds for tariff-related costs, and the owner believes he should be entitled to a share of that. The lawsuit says Ford passed extra tariff costs on to buyers with higher destination charges on vehicles built in Mexico.
Courtesy of Ford
Those costs came when Ford was paying more to import the Mach-E and other models, and Ford did indeed raise destination prices on the Mach-E and others. Since then, the Supreme Court ruled the tariffs illegal and struck them down.
The end result of that decision was an agreement from the federal government to repay any duties paid by companies that have since been deemed illegal. In Ford's case, that number is around $1.3 billion.
Justifiably, Ford offset rising costs with higher prices. Similarly, justifiably, owners should be entitled to a refund of those costs since Ford did not eat those costs: it raised destination charges to compensate for new tariffs, which owners paid.
However, the lawsuit has a very long way to go. Ford won't give up that money easily, and class-action suits in particular can take years upon years to resolve in courts, especially in states as large as California.
The lawsuit is certainly not the only one of its kind. Huge retailers like Costco, Amazon, and more are all facing similar suits from consumers who paid higher costs, now wanting their share of the government's refunded money.
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