The Voice - Consumer's Voice

Where’s my bed?

I bought a bed from some warehouse on 17th June. I saw their advert on Facebook and talked to the sales rep. We communicated on Facebook until delivery date. Since day one the bed I bought for P3,000 was having a noise and the mattress is uncomfortable. Now they are playing the hard to get.

I have been heart broken till now. They promised to change the bed and they keep on giving out empty promises. I’m so broken since I got robbed of my hard earned P3,000.

The most hurting part is that the sales rep has that stinking attitude.

I’m very sorry for your trouble and I’m also sorry for the fact that I probably won’t be able to help. That’s because these people don’t like me and they’ve already blocked me from communicating with them. We had a similar situation with the same company in May this year when they simply failed to deliver a bed a customer had paid for three months beforehand. I contacted them and they simply refused to cooperate. They accused me of being “unprofessional” and refused to allow the customer to cancel the purchase and to refund her.

I tried contacting them again but it’s clear they don’t want to speak to me. However, I contacted the Competition and Consumer Authority and reported your complaint to them. They have the power to insist that shady suppliers like these guys don’t block their calls. Let’s see if they’re prepared to flex their muscles!

UPDATE: They started communicating again. They’ve promised an exchange once we’re released from the lockdown. Maybe the pressure from the Authority had an effect!

What should I tell my friend?

Hello Richard, I have a friend who is planning to invest all his money in something called FOREX. He says that you put your money in it and that they use the money to make a profits by doing foreign exchange then your money is paid an interest of 15% every month. I am not convinced about this. Is it something legitimate? Should I allow him to continue? If not what should I do to convince him otherwise. It's like he is planning to invest ALL the money he has. Every single thebe.

I wish we all had friends like you, people who take the time to protect the people they care about and do their best to prevent them being abused and scammed.

Firstly, there’s nothing inherently wrong with forex. We all do forex transactions when we change Pula to another currency when we travel overseas. Even when we withdraw cash at a foreign ATM, our banks are converting our money from one currency to another. It’s normal practice. However, you’ll find that there are many people around who suggest that ordinary people like me, you and your friend can make profits from doing this. They suggest that by looking closely at the exchange rates between currencies and the tiny changes that happen every day between the relative values of different currencies we can buy and sell them to make a profit. Yes, that’s certainly possible, but is it likely?

Financial institutions like banks and investment companies spend vast amounts of money on supercomputers that model the forex market and just as much money employing some of the cleverest people you’ll ever meet to make money this way. Do we really think mere mortals like us can compete with them?

And then there are the claims made by companies like this one. Anyone who guarantees that we can make 15% per month is either lying, ignorant or insane. No legitimate investment or business opportunity can keep a promise to make those profits. You’d be lucky to make 15% in a year, particularly in these troubled times.

The company you identified seem suspicious. Their domain was only registered late in 2019 and they seem to have connections to other companies with shady histories. Worse still is that they appear to have been the subject of a warning from the Nigerian authorities earlier this year.

I think your friend deserves to know all of this, don’t you?