You have misinterpreted what the article documents:

> In this case, the car was sold back to Tesla, a dealer bought it from Tesla and sold it to someone. Tesla determined that the car was configured with FSD even though the user never paid for it.

The dealer purchased the car from the manufacturer and the window sticker (required by law to be provided by the manufacturer to prevent dealer fraud) listed the “FSD” feature as included with the device. The purchaser bought it with the understanding that that list of features was correct. The dealer had no say in the matter either way.

You don’t have to take my word for this: the Monroney sticker is actually in the linked article.

Legally this is unambiguously fraud by the manufacturer.