Saturday 2 July 2022

The Voice - Consumer's Voice

Where's my fridge?

Hello Richard, I need your assistance. I bought a fridge in December 2020 from a furniture store in Gaborone station. It was a combined fridge for gas and electric I wanted to use it for gas but it was not working. I did tell the furniture shop that it is not working and they did come to attend it but they attended the electric side, I went back again to report again and they told me they were not aware that I am complaining of which part of the fridge so they are going back to the office they will come back again.

They never came back and I decided to take the fridge on my expense back to the shop in August last year. They told me they will call me, but they never did. From the time that I was complaining about the fridge I stopped paying because ever since I bought the fridge it was never used. They started calling me this month this year saying they are going to list me with ITC and ended up doing that. The fridge is with them and now I want to get a loan and I can't because I am listed. I would like you to assist recover my instalments fee and be removed from ITC listing as I have never used the fridge. I have incurred more cost every time having to explain and call their bosses without resolution.


Normally my advice when thinks like this happen is NEVER to stop paying your hire purchase instalments. That's because when you stop paying your instalments the store can refuse to honour the warranty you got when you bought the items.

But in this case, I think we can overlook that. This is a situation where I think the store must ignore their contract and do the right thing. They let you down repeatedly, firstly by selling you something that failed and then by repeatedly failing to fix the fridge.

I've emailed them and asked then to take a look and politely suggested that they consider how well they've treated you. Let's hope they can do the right thing.

Is it legit?

Hi Richard. Please tell me about these guys who are offering loans from outside the country like South Africa at 3 percent. How legit are they?


How legit are they? The answer is simple. They're not. They're scams.

We've been warning people about scam lenders like this for several years and the pattern is always the same. They always offer loans across borders, almost always from South Africa. That's the first clue. Genuine lenders don't lend money to people in other countries. It just doesn't happen. Would you lend money to a total stranger in another country, someone you'd never met? Of course not.

The next clue is how cheap these loans appear to be. The interest rates they claim to charge are much, much lower than what real lender like a bank would offer. That's simply unbelievable. How could they afford to offer such low rates?

They also offer huge amounts of money. They often say they can lend many millions. Remember that they're saying they'll lend these amounts at incredibly low interest rates to people they've never met in foreign countries.

The final clue is how easy it is to get one of these fake loans. You give them just a few personal details and they say they'll send the money. Anyone who has ever borrowed money from a real lender will know this isn't how things work. Real loans take time.

One of the tricks these scammers play is that they'll often use the name of legitimate, registered lenders based in South Africa. They'll even quote the registration number and the web site of the real company, pretending it's theirs. I've spoken to the owners of the legitimate companies and they say it's incredibly damaging to their genuine lending businesses.

The truth is that everything you hear from these fake lenders is a lie. Just before they say you're going to receive the loan, they'll invent a reason why you need to pay them for something. They might say it's an account opening fee, lawyers' costs, a transaction charge, whatever it is, that's what this scam is all about. The whole story was made up to get that money from you. That's what the scam is all about.

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