The Voice - Consumer's Voice

Will they charge me the right price?

I paid a P10,000 deposit for a stove priced at P12,000 on the shop floor. I have a time stamped photo of the sign saying P12,000, but when I got home I realized the contract was down for P13,000 and when I went into the store at Airport Junction they had increased the price on the shop floor to P13k.

I requested on a later date that I should have gotten the P12,000 price but they said I should have raised it on the same day.

Do I have something I should fight for here or I should accept defeat?

It depends if you care about your rights and the rights of everyone else.

I suspect this is an experience we've all had, when the price we're asked to pay at the till is more than the price we saw on the shelf or in an advertisement. It's certainly happened to me a few times.

The good news is that the law is on our side. Section 11 of the Consumer Protection Act is one of my favourites. It starts by saying that prices must always be displayed and that they should be displayed in Pula. Better still, Section 11 (3) of the Act says, in very simple language, that a supplier "shall not charge a consumer more than the price
indicated or displayed for goods or services".

I think you should go back to the store and explain this to them. I've also contacted them and I'm sure they'll do the right thing.

Update: The store manager contacted the customer and has promised to do all he can do to assist. Let's hope.

Yellow Card scams – another warning

Several people have asked yet again about a particular scam that's still going around.

 

Most people on Facebook will have seen advertisements for an opportunity to make a lot of money using Yellow Card. Many people have tried to post these advertisements in the Consumer Watchdog Facebook group but I've declined them. One recent advertisement said that if you joined and invested P300 it would grow to P3,000 and that "you will get your profit within 2hours of mining". They claimed that P2,500 would grow to P20,000 in the same time.

These adverts all had three things in common. They all mentioned Yellow Card, they all promised that I could multiply
my "investment" many times over in just a few days and they all included screenshots of bank payment notifications. However, all three of these claims were false. Firstly, it's nothing to do with Yellow Card, which is a legitimate exchange where you can buy and sell cryptocurrencies. Secondly, there is no investment in the world that can multiply money as quickly as these people claim. Thirdly, the bank alerts were obviously faked.

In my conversations with these scammers they all eventually confessed that they were associated with a range of web sites that made these offers and all of these sites were registered in just the last few months. They were also all reluctant to say where in fact they were based, most claiming they were in Botswana, but it was obvious they really weren't. Some couldn't even spell the name of the country or town they claimed to be in. It was also interesting to see that the web sites were all almost identical. This is clearly an organised scam. I've noticed that very often the people trying to post these advertisements use different Facebook profiles but the same cell number. Another trick they play is to persuade new recruits to post videos saying they've made money from the scheme. However, I managed to trace one of these people and she told me she had been paid to do this.

Please I beg you, don't fall for scams like this. You'll never make a profit and I guarantee you'll lose any money you "invest". If you're ever in any doubt if something is a scam, you can always contact Consumer Watchdog for advice. And remember that anyone who invites you to join their money-making scheme wants to make money FROM you, not WITH you.