The Voice - Consumer's Voice

Must we pay for the power?

My mother has a house in Mochudi which she rented out when she moved to her other house in 2013. Tenants kept moving in and out over the years and sometime in 2018 the last tenant moved out and the house stayed vacant until I and my younger moved in in March 2020. We reported an electric fault the first week of July after the main switch kept tripping and when BPC attendants came they disconnected the electricity completely and accused us of fraud as they said the meter box had been bypassed and electricity had been used illegally for sometime. I went to BPC offices to explain what happened but I was told there is nothing they can do to help us because as the owners of the house we had the responsibility of everything that happened inside the premises.

I was told we will have to pay a charge for fraud based on an estimate of our monthly usage amounting to P21,000. I resolved to paying an amount of P14,500 for the electricity to be restored. We have accepted the wrong which has been done but we feel its not fair as BPC wanted the whole amount paid before restoration of power and they refused to offer us a payment plan.

This must be very difficult and challenging for you and your mother. However, I think BPC have a point, that as owners of the property, you had a responsibility to ensure that the electricity BPC supplied was used properly and legally. In theory I think BPC can be expected to chase the tenant who tampered with the equipment but can anyone identify which tenant it actually was?

I think the best approach is to try your best to negotiate something with BPC and then perhaps try to identify which tenant bypassed the power supply and take legal action against them to recover your losses.

The lesson is that landlords need to be very careful about how their tenants behave and to regularly inspect meters and cabling to ensure that nothing illegal (and incredibly dangerous) has been done.

Where’s my phone?

I bought a Samsung J6 phone from a store located in Rail Park Mall in Gaborone on the 18th May 2019. The price for the phone was P2,495. I used the phone for about six months then it froze while charging it. On the 5th December 2019 I went back to the cellphone warehouse shop and reported the problem with my phone. It was then inspected by a lady and took it for repair by their technician. She promised that my phone would be fixed within seven working days or I will be given a new phone if fixing does not materialise. The phone was still under warranty of 12 months. From December last year up to date I have not received my phone. They are always narrating stories barring me from seeing the shop owner but failing to give me my phone or a new phone. I always call the shop and sometimes travel to Gaborone to pick up my phone but nothing has ever worked. The always make numerous excuses and promises which they never fulfil.

Please Consumer watchdog help me. I want my money back because I don't trust the company anymore.

This is complete incompetence. I understand that sometimes a repair can take a while to complete, cellphones are highly technical devices. However, taking eight months to repair a fairly normal phone is completely unacceptable.

I think that we should BOTH approach the store and tell them that Section 15 (1) of the Consumer Protection Act 2018 says that consumers have “the right to receive goods which are of good quality, in good working order and free of defects”. Clearly a phone that doesn’t work properly fails this test.

We should also tell them that Section 14 (1) of the Act says that when “a supplier undertakes to perform any services for or on behalf of a consumer, the consumer has a right to … timely performance and completion of those services” and “timely notice of any unavoidable delay”. In other words, a store like this one should do things reasonably quickly and they need to tell you if there’s going to be any delay. Finally, the Act says that consumers have a right to “performance of the services in a manner and quality that consumers are reasonably entitled to expect”.

Let’s see if the pressure of us both educating them about the law will add some pressure.