The Voice - Consumer's Voice

Why won’t they talk to me?

I really need your help. Around September 2019 I was offered a flat for sale, so I asked a law firm to do the whole conveyance and bond registration process and to this day they haven’t done anything to show progress and I apparently cannot get another firm until I get my file from the first firm. They are not giving me any reasonable explanation as to why a process that should have taken a month to complete now has over 7 months. Before the lockdown I asked them to return my files so that I could get another law firm, they had promised to give me the files before the lockdown but never came through.

Kindly assist me in any way possible. Any help will be welcome and thank you.

I have great respect for the legal profession. They perform an incredibly important role in any society. I’ve also been privileged to get to know some of them and a very select group have become very good friends. However, like any profession, you also get some crooks, shady characters and those that are just unreliable. Like these guys.

I know that any house purchase can take a long time. I’ve certainly been there myself. Something you suspect will take just a couple of weeks ends up taking months. However, you have a right to expect that any service provider, whether it’s an attorney, a bank, an insurance company or even a delivery company to keep you updated. In fact, the law now demands this. Section 14 (1) of the new Consumer Protection Act says that when “a supplier undertakes to perform any services for or on behalf of a consumer, the consumer has a right to … the timely performance and completion of those services”. It doesn’t say what ‘timely’ means because that might vary enormously, depending on what services you’re buying, but I think we all know when something ISN’T ‘timely’, don’t we? Seven months without an update is certainly NOT timely.

However, the law goes further. It also says that a consumer has a right to “timely notice of any unavoidable delay in the performance of the services”. In other words, if something is going to be delayed, they must tell you. Going silent on a customer is no longer acceptable.

I suggest that teach your attorney about the law. Yes, I know it’s meant to work the other way around, but clearly this attorney needs some tuition. You should also consider reporting them to the Law Society. That might add to their education.

MORE WARNINGS

We’ve all learned a lot of lessons from coronavirus and Covid-19 in the last few months. At least I hope we have. One particularly important lesson we all need to learn is the difference between science and pseudoscience, between real medicine and fake.

Unfortunately, there are several schemes currently doing their best to exploit the lack of understanding. For instance, distributors for Greenleaf told me that I “need” a very small range of their products if I have diabetes, cataracts, cardio-vascular disease, hypertension, various types of cancer, several sexually transmitted infections, leprosy and an enormous range of other disorders.

A distributor for AG Nutrition, who market a product called AG Cera, told me that it can “cleanse the body and improve immune system”. Others reported that it can heal cancer, diabetes, fibroids and asthma.

All of these claims are illegal. Making health claims about a product is forbidden by Sections 396-399 of Penal Code and by Section 83 of the Public Health Act.

It’s also incredibly dangerous. Most of us will be sceptical about non-specialists selling products they claim can treat or cure disorders that modern medicine has difficulty treating. However, some people WILL fall for their lies. People desperate to find a treatment for a disease they’re suffering or that someone they love is fighting might easily be persuaded by the dangerous and illegal claims made by charlatans.

Of course, these products are often just a cover story for a pyramid scheme. They’re often more about recruiting other people rather than selling their bogus products.

A presentation for AG Nutrition included the statement, “You don't have to sell in order to earn big money.”

The good news is that pyramid schemes are now illegal in Botswana and promoting them or even just joining can lead to a fine of up to P100,000, five years in prison or both. Is that a risk you’re prepared to take? Is it a risk that you want the people you care about to take? Please help spread the word!