The Voice - Consumer's Voice

Dear Consumer’s Voice #1

I bought the car from a dealer on 6th September 2011 for P33,500. On the 15th October, I made a trip to Francistown only for the vehicle to overheat 100km outside Gaborone. It is now costing me P7,500 to have this vehicle towed and repaired. We cannot even source the parts here in Botswana. It was found that the radiator had a crack, thus causing the engine to overheat.

Is there anyway that the seller can compensate as the car was only a month in my possession?

I suspect that there's little you can do in this situation. I imagine the car was sold "voetstoots" or "as seen" and although that doesn't mean they can knowingly sell you something that isn't of merchantable quality it does mean the onus is on the you, the buyer, to have the vehicle fully examined before paying.

Even if you were able to prove that the problem was there when you bought the car it would be very difficult that he knew about it.

Unfortunately I suspect this is going to be difficult to resolve. The only thing I can suggest is that you contact the dealer and see if they’re prepared to help you get the problem fixed.

Dear Consumer’s Voice #2

I received an email from a certain Mr Marc Bruce claiming that my email has won 800 000 British Pounds to which I was asked to select whether I wanted to be paid by cheque or direct transfer to my bank account. I selected being paid by cheque. Now they want me to pay US$1,345 before they can send the cheque in order to release the claim money. I am now becoming skeptical about their authenticity and integrity . Is it possible that you can investigate on my behalf if they are indeed reputable people that I can trust and send my money to.

This is a scam.

There are several clues, Firstly if the "prize" is in UK Pounds, why do you have to pay the fee in US Dollars? Then there are the various strangely worded English phrases that wouldn’t be said by someone from a real bank, like:

"your total sum which is in CHEQUE"
"Escrowed Non- Resident Pounds Bank Account"
"we cannot deduct any money from as an internal control measure"

The email doesn't come from Barclays, it's actually from a free email account. Similarly the phone number is a cellphone number, no landline numbers are given.

Everything in this email is fake. There is no prize money, these people are NOT from Barclays Bank, all they want is the "advance fee" of $1,345.

Please don't send them any money, you'll never see it again.

Dear Consumer’s Voice #3

I am a bit sceptic about this work at home offer called Elite Business Systems which I happened to stumble upon while browsing the net. The language seem fine, but their trace is a bit vague and not easy to follow. I do not know if should go ahead and order the starter pack or just unsubscribe.

Please kindly advise as I have come to trust you with exposing scams.

I actually covered this particular Get Rich Quick scheme on our blog a few weeks ago. "Elite Business Systems" is actually a front for a Herbalife distributor.

Like all of these schemes there's virtually no chance of actually making any money, particularly if it's a Multi Level Marketing system like Herbalife. Herbalife in the USA are required to disclose the average income that it’s distributors make. In 2010 83% of the distributors between them made barely 9% of the income. The average income was about $800 and that’s not profit, that’s their income before they paid their bills. Almost all the income was made by less than 10% of the distributors.

Please avoid this scheme. If it sounds too good to be true then it certainly IS.