The Voice - Consumer's Voice

Is it legit?

Can you please check for me if a company called Tigris Capital UK is indeed legit. I heard from a friend who is selling me the idea that those are financial funders. They are investor who are willing to invest in Africa, that they are willing to invest millions to a billion dollars. I can send you documents for you to see.

I'm very glad you contacted me before you went any further with this. It's a scam. There is absolutely no doubt about it.

The first clue is that this is not how lending works. Lenders from foreign countries don't give billions, millions or anything to total strangers in foreign countries. It's hard enough getting a loan from a local bank so it's unbelievable that a company in another country will lend you so much money.

The second clue can be found in the material they sent you. This included South African company registration documents, BEE certificates, industry regulator compliance documents, copies of passports and even bank confirmation letters. These very convincing documents might have been persuasive if they'd been for the right company. Instead of "Tigris Capital UK", they were for a South African company with a totally different name. I suspect these are all genuine documents but for an innocent company with no connection to this scam.

However, the biggest clue was in the contract from "Tigris Capital" you were sent. Alongside lots of fancy contractual terms was this: "2.7 Facilitation Fee: A total facilitation fee of (6%) will be payable by the Borrower on disbursement of the loan."

That's what this is all about. As soon as you've agreed to accept the loan, YOU have to pay THEM a lot of money. That is the payment that gives this scam its name: an "advance fee scam".

Please spread the word to everyone you know so they, like you, can avoid this and similar scams.

Where's my refund?

Last week Saturday I bought a headboard at a furniture store and paid P7100 cash. They told me that they will deliver it on Sunday the following day. I waited for them the whole day on Sunday and they didn't deliver it. On Monday they told me that they don't have that headboard in stock even at the warehouse so they had to refund me. I've been calling them the whole week for my refund and they are telling me that they are still trying to raise my money because they don't have any cash.

This is ridiculous. This is a major chain of furniture stores who claim they don't have any money? And why do they even need to pay you in cash? If they had any sense they'd get your bank account details and they could refund you in a moment. That's surely the simplest solution?

I contacted senior management at their Head Office and alerted them.

Update: They contacted the customer and promised to refund them the next day.