The Voice - Consumer's Voice

An iPhone with no charger?

My husband got me an iPhone 4 as a birthday gift on the 7th January but the phone didn’t have a charger but a power bank thing and there was no earpiece.

On 11th January we travelled from Gumare where we stay to Maun and enquired about the unavailable accessories. The guy told us that they bought the phone like that from their supplier in South Africa, I told him that even the cheapest phone comes with those basic accessories and how come an expensive one could be sold without those basic accessories. After a long argument he gave me a Samsung earpiece which I refused to take, he sent me with his shop assistant to an opposite phone shop, saying they will give me an iPhone earpiece.

When I got there I explained what am looking for to the man, he told me the power bank is for the iPhone and I informed him that if was originally for the iPhone, it could be written iPhone, he then went to the store room, brought an open box with an iPhone 6 with a charger only and I told him that’s how an iPhone box and charger looks like, he said its because its iPhone 6 unlike mine which is an iPhone 4.

He then told me that he can only give a Samsung earpiece and nothing else. I told them that at some point, sooner the power bank given will be dead unlike if it was an original iPhone charger. What can I do?

You can take the phone back and demand a full refund and if the store give you any trouble we’ll call in the authorities. The absence of a charger and earphones means we can assume safely that this is a second-hand phone. Apple haven’t been selling the iPhone 4 for a long time now so I can’t see how a store could still have new ones in stock. As an iPhone user myself I can tell you clearly that EVERY genuine, new Apple phone comes with a charging cable, adaptor and earphones. They should also know that the iPhone 4 and 6 use completely different cables so why they were offering you an iPhone 6 cable is a mystery.

We called the store and said we assumed they’d know that the Consumer Protection Regulations specifically forbid stores from claiming that a “commodity is new when in fact it has deteriorated, or it has been altered, reconditioned, used or is second hand”. That’s when they admitted that the phone was “reconditioned” but they could do nothing to help you until the manager returned.

I think you should go back to the store and explain all of this to them. Explain that they are already in trouble with us and they soon will be with the Ministry of Trade and Industry. And here’s another thing. Look a the receipt they gave you. They have a VAT number but didn’t charge your husband VAT. Looks like they’re in trouble with BURS as well!

Do we know Three Link Connection?

Hello I would like to find out about a certain South African Company called Three Link Connection and they say that they triple someone money in just three weeks time which is something I think is too good to be true, do you know about these guys?

Oh yes, we know them very well indeed! They’re crooks.

We dealt with their victims several times in 2012 and 2013. Three Link Connection had made a range of amazing promises, telling them that they could treble their investments by buying cheap products in China and selling here in southern African for enormous profits. Unfortunately this was all lies. We heard from at least twenty people who had “invested” tens of thousands of Pula but had seen nothing back from them other than excuses and offers of more profits if only they’d hand over more money. Tragically many people did exactly that, throwing “good money after bad”.

I eventually traced the founder of this scam, Daisy Mogale, who had been prosecuted in SA for a previous scam she operated and she made it very clear how much contempt she had for her victims in Botswana. Once she stopped shouting at me down the phone and demanding to know who gave me her cellphone number she gave me her reaction to the complaints we’d received. “They’re all liars! All of them in Botswana are liars!” she told me.

Please don’t waste your money with these crooks, you’ll never see it again.

The Voice - Consumer's Voice

Hotel Express again

I need your assistance, there is a company called Hotel Express that called my dad and took money from his card. The lady who called never explained that she was selling membership and my dad never agreed nor was he aware that they will withdraw money from his account.

We have been trying to call them and they don't pick up our calls, It seem to me they screen numbers for complaints, your first time call it will be answered immediately there after they will never ever pick up your calls.

First things first. Hotel Express International is a legitimate company that offers discounts on hotel stays and other vacation experiences in return for an annual membership fee. However it’s not quite as simple as that sounds. Firstly not all hotels offer these discounts and those that do only have limited rooms available so it’s perfectly possible that the hotel you want won’t offer you the discount. Also the discount is from the hotel’s “rack rate” which is the often-inflated price a hotel will quote, solely so they can offer “discounts”.

My biggest objection to their scheme is that I don’t see why anyone should pay for a discounted hotel stay when hotels often give these discounts away for free. One of my colleagues recently stayed in a hotel in Francistown for almost half the normal price just by booking the room online rather than by phone. I’m writing this column from a hotel in South Africa that I booked using Bid2Stay where you are allowed to offer that hotel chain what you would like to pay. On this occasion I got a 40% discount, just by using their web site. I didn’t need to pay anything to get the discount.

More importantly there seems to be a problem with the way Hotel Express International sell their membership scheme.

We’ve heard many times from consumers who have been “cold called” by them and who have been asked for their credit or debit card details, to “check your eligibility”, or to check “if you’re eligible for Gold membership”. If asked, they assure them that they won’t actually be charged but within minutes of giving out their card number and hanging up the phone, their cellphone beeps and they see they’ve charged the full amount, anything from about P1,600 up to P3,500.

The lessons are simple. Please don’t EVER give out your card numbers to strangers over the phone whatever they promise you. Secondly don’t waste money joining discount schemes when you can get the same discounts elsewhere for free. Why waste your money?

Meanwhile we’ll contact Hotel Express International to find out what they can do for your dad.

Scammers don’t give refunds

I would like to enquire if it is possible for Watchdog to help me get back my money from Three Link Connections owned by Daisy Mogale. I have been expecting the payment since 2012. I went into a business transaction whereby I partnered with Daisy Mogale, the director of Three Link Connections, to supposedly buy goods at China which Three Link Connection was to distribute and share the profit. I have copies of the contracts which I signed. I wrote them a letter in 2013 which I never got a response to. Hoping for a positive response.

Three Link Connection organisers meeting their victims
in April 2013. Nice office. (It's a branch of Wimpy.)

Unfortunately there is very little chance you’ll get your money back. Three Link Connection was a scam. They claimed that they were helping people to buy products in China and then import them to southern Africa to sell at twice the price and their contracts even promised to double people’s money within 30 days. You know what we say, that if something SEEMS too good to be true then it IS too good to be true. There are no schemes that can double your money in a month. They simply don’t exist.

Daisy Mogale, the woman behind TLC, has a long history in the scam industry having operated an identical scheme before TLC. I called her once and she was defiant. Her victims in Botswana were “all liars” she said. The lesson is a simple one. Anyone promising you quick and massive returns on an investment is a liar.

Update: I heard later that the person writing this letter had “invested” over P250,000 in the scam. There is no chance at all that she’ll get even a thebe back. Be warned and learn from her experience!

I don’t like Luddites

The Luddites were a 19th Century group of English textile workers who objected to the introduction of labour-saving machinery. They objected not by writing letters to the newspapers or complaining to their MP but instead by invading factories and destroying the machines that were making textile production so much more efficient and textile prices much cheaper. Their resistance to the new technologies they saw was so profound that they gave their name to anyone who objects to progress.

I’m sure we all know some Luddites. They aren’t just people who are a little behind the times, they’re the type that object in principle to anything new. Modern Luddites are the people who object to Facebook and Twitter, despite not even understanding what they really are.

However, despite what modern Luddites will tell you, new technology has improved the quality of life of everyone on Earth. Even if you don’t use the internet yourself, your doctor, your kid’s teachers and the scientists fighting disease are using it to educate themselves and thus to make life better for everyone. Despite things the Luddites will object to, such as pornography, the way the internet destroys borders and its effect on language it’s nevertheless a comprehensively good thing.

Although not being a programmer myself I’ve been lucky enough to work in and around the IT industry for many years so I think I’m equipped with enough knowledge to comment on a few things. One is that despite all the powerful benefits technology brings, the vast majority of people and companies are barely scratching the surface of what they can now do.

Some of it fairly mundane. Let’s take banks as an example.

Why, for instance, don’t banks get their computer systems to automatically write a letter to every customer who has just finished paying off a loan, but who never defaulted on a payment, saying that they were a fantastic customer, the sort that makes their business easier, thanking them profusely and offering a discount on any future loans? Their systems have all the data needed to do such a thing. They can tell who the good customers are and who the bad ones are, so why aren’t they telling the good ones how much they appreciate them. If they did so, don’t you think it would create some customer loyalty? Don’t you think the knowledge that they weren’t in this privileged group would make the bad customers go elsewhere? Don’t you think this would make the bank more profitable?

What about using the data banks collect to prevent crime?

Three Link Connection victims meeting the organisers in
secret in their plush offices. Sorry, a branch of Wimpy.

For a couple of years Botswana was plagued by a scam calling itself “Three Link Connection”, apparently run by two characters called Hennie Visser and Daisy Mojale who had both been prosecuted in South Africa for a previous scam they operated. The details don’t matter particularly but what intrigued me was that thousands of victims had all, within months of each other, deposited exactly the same amount of money into one of the organizer’s personal bank accounts. Surely their bank would have noticed this as something suspicious?

Perhaps I was wrong in thinking that if a bank had a suspicion that a customer was behaving improperly they had a moral, if not legal obligation to call the cops?

Perhaps I was also wrong in assuming that the anti-money laundering rules that all banks in the civilized world are required to abide by required banks to notice suspicious behavior like this and to notify the authorities when they see it? Maybe it’s one of those rules “more honored in the breach than the observance”.

Of course most scammers avoid banks because banks are required to keep records and track the flow of money. However is it possible the banks are no more of a protection to us than Western Union, the money transfer mechanism of choice for scammers?

In the last couple of months there’s been another issue where banks have perhaps failed to exploit the technology at their disposal.

In the middle of August one of our major banks had a problem. A number of the payments made using their Point Of Sale swipe machines throughout the country weren’t actually deducted from customer’s accounts. You didn’t have to be one of their customers but if your card was swiped through this bank’s device in a store you could walk out with your shopping but your account was never actually debited with the amount you spent. It was days or sometimes weeks later that the money was taken from your account. Of course customers should have known that the money hadn’t been taken because we’re meant to check our accounts 24/7 but who, realistically, does that?

What happened was that the customers assumed that the money had been deducted and carried on spending. When the money was finally deducted it came as a shock to all of them. Some even ended up overdrawn and paying penalties as a result.

My question is this. Didn’t the bank with the problem realize that this was happening? Didn’t they see that there was a sudden, unexpected drop in money moving from one place to another? Didn’t their systems alert them to a change in consumer behavior?

Of course this sort of thing is possible, I know this for a fact. I worked with IT systems that had these “intelligence” systems 25 years ago.

Or is it possible that banks, who we often see as high-tech, advanced and progressive, the trailblazers of technology are actually a bit behind the times?

Frankly it’s not good enough. I know that in this last case customers should have noticed what had gone wrong but we pay our banks to hold our accounts for us. They have the technology to help us but you have to ask yourself if they actually care.

How to save money

We all want to save money but the bad news is that saving money is a bit like losing weight. There are NO miracle products or solutions. The ONLY way to lose weight is to consume less energy than you use. Consume more than you use and your prehistoric body will store some of the excess for the next time there’s a drought and you can’t catch any impala. Consumer less than you use and your body will use that excess and off will come the weight.

It’s exactly the same with money. If you can’t increase your income dramatically, you have to reduce your expenditure to save money.

It’s not always easy but here are some tips. Tips that really might save you some money.

Don’t invest in Ponzi schemes, pyramid schemes or anything related to foreign exchange. An “opportunitiy” to make “huge profits” from an investment scheme is ALWAYS a scam. It’s always a lie designed to part you from what little money you have. We now know about Eurextrade, the Ponzi scheme that collapsed a few months ago, the scheme that stole money from hundreds, if not thousands of people in Botswana. We also know that many people we know, our neighbours, friends and colleagues were part of it. They were the ones doing the recruitment into the scam on the promise of a percentage of whatever they conned from future victims.

The bizarre thing is that only last week I heard that despite Eurextrade having collapsed, some of its recruits are still going around trying to recruit others. I can only assume that they are desperately trying to recover some of the money they lost by stealing it from other people.

More recently even the payment mechanism used by Eurextrade, Liberty Reserve, stopped operating. It was shut down by US authorities who said that “Liberty Reserve was intentionally created and structured to facilitate criminal activity”, presumably like Eurextrade but also for a range of other money-laundering activities. They reckon that over $6 billion had gone through Liberty Reserve’s coffers.

Unfortunately these schemes are constantly reincarnating. As one dies, another emerges. At the moment people are asking me about a foreign exchange scheme called XForex. This is slightly different, it does actually seem to be a legitimate mechanism, but makes promises that are absurd. The first thing to mention is that ordinary people like you and me don’t make money by trading foreign exchange. The market is so volatile, the changes usually so slight and the companies like XForex so suspicious that we’re not going to make a fortune, if anything from it. Think of it this way. If big commercial banks don’t make fortunes this way with the trillions they have to invest, how can mere mortals like us? The only people making money from Forex trading are the people running the companies encouraging us to do so.

You can also judge these schemes by the way they recruit new victims. Eurextrade snared people by accosting them on the streets and in spicy chicken restaurants, XForex do it on Facebook by making extravagant claims. One advert on Facebook showed a room full of hundreds of scattered banknotes and announced that “Mr.Baruti From Botswana Has Made $5024 From EUR/USD Trading Last Month!”

It went on to say that “It Is So Easy To Make A Second Income! Take Your First Step In To a Wealthier Future!”

You can tell this is a scam, can’t you?

It’s the same with schemes like Three Link Connection. You can tell they’re crooked. This is still operating I’m told, but has now reached the stage where they are constantly fending off the demands of their victims for the return of their money. Apparently they’ve even suggested that the only way for them to get their original “investment back is, yes, you’ve guessed it, to hand over more money.

Another way to save money is not to fall for the imported car silliness. Buying a car online from a far-flung foreign country is NOT a cheaper way to buy a car than buying one here. It’s simply not cheaper. Once you include the costs of actually getting the car from the UK or Singapore all the way to Botswana, all the taxes, duties and fees, all the storage costs they often include you get to almost the same price as an identical car here or in South Africa. If not more. Then you add in the additional costs for parts when you later service the car, always assuming that you can get it serviced. I know dealers here who now refuse to service imported cars of the brands they sell because either the cars have been “clocked” by having their mileage adjusted or the inconvenience of finding parts for cars built for other parts of the world is so high.

Then there’s the other two critical “costs”. Who in their right mind would buy a car they’ve never test-driven? That’s The Number One Rule Of Buying A Second Hand Car. Test drive the car before you sign anything. Then go home and think about it. Then get your friend the mechanic to test-drive it as well. This is obviously impossible if the car you want is on the far side of the planet.

The final “cost” is the sort of people who often run these import businesses. Business like Westridge Holdings, who represent Trans Africa Vehicle Exports who, as I’ve mentioned before, lie, take people’s money without delivering cars and, if you’re lucky, just deliver the wrong type of car and make you wait forever for a refund. The same company who, according to another newspaper, has had it’s owner arrested on suspicion of fraud.

You can save a lot of money by simply not giving it to a companies like these.

More and more scams

The Eurextrade scam continues to make people suffer, ever after it’s collapsed and gone away.

We heard recently about one of the “investors” in Eurextrade who had gone as far as selling two houses and a car to raise the money to invest in the scheme. When he began to see stories that the scam had finally fallen apart he collapsed and ended up in hospital and as far as I know he’s still there. Another victim.

I don’t know him but apparently he’s an older gentleman and the houses were his retirement fund. He’s a sensible guy who knew that investing in property is a safe bet but a fool for giving his hard-earned investment to a scheme that promised “up to 2.9% per day”. Presumably he’s now a poor and unwell senior citizen, not someone enjoying the comfortable retirement he deserved.

The unfortunate truth is that scammers like the crooks running Eurextrade and their local representatives who so willingly recruited other victims don’t offer refunds. The money is gone, never to be seen again. Luckily the names of the local reps are still online if you know where to look to find out who can’t be trusted.

Unfortunately scams are like the flu, new variations are constantly appearing. As we become immune to one another mutation emerges. One of the latest calls itself “Oil of Asia”. On their web site they make some remarkable claims about the money you can earn, promising “3% Fixed Daily Profit for 75 business days”. They describe themselves as "one of the leading investment companies globally with financial activity conducted in oil market, Oil of Asia Ltd is a truly recognized for its excellence in customer service and tons of satisfied customers in more."

Can you tell that English isn’t their first language?

So how do they claim to make money? This is what they say:

"We collect investments from numerous customers from around the world, unite them in one investment fund while leaving some funds for reserve fund, and then purchase futures and securities sold by oil companies worldwide."

So no real clues there, just the usual meaningless waffle you get from all Ponzi schemes.

The thing I find most curious is that Oil of Asia give a long list of “representatives” you can contact for more information. Guess what? Several of them are people who also used to “represent” Eurextrade. Why would someone do that? Don’t they know they’re fronting for crooks or are they just fixated on the commission they might “earn” by recruiting other people? Maybe some of them are just thugs? I contacted one of them and he confirmed that he knew that both Eurextrade and Oil of Asia were both Ponzi scheme. When I told him that I’d put his comments on our blog and Facebook group he responded with:

“you know I can take you to court for this, I can easily trace you, I think you know this can turn into a nightmare for you, don take me for granted”.

Like I said. A thug.

You might also recall another scam that suckered a lot of people but which hasn’t entirely collapsed yet, “Three Link Connection”? This is how one victim described the scheme:

“When we are recruited we are told the company is involved in selling electrical appliances sourced from China. The information is that [they] do not have enough money to buy stock direct from the manufacturer in China. Therefore when we are recruited we are told the money we invest will be used to purchase the stock that will be later sold in Africa.”

But that’s just a pack of lies. Three Link Connection is a scam, a fraud, a deception. They take your money, pretend they’re going to invest it in cheap Chinese products and then come up with endless excuses about why you’re not getting your money back.

A few days ago one of the victims emailed us saying:

“I am one of the people who have invested in this company. I lost a lot of money and am still struggling to get up after that blow. The people who were at the 'top' who all along had no answers for us have suddenly called a meeting. If you can, please attend so you can meet the people who misled Batswana and maybe hear what empty promises they will be giving us this time around or another scheme to get more money from us. I am hoping you will come even if you 'told us so'.”

So we went along. Unfortunately it didn’t go well. When we first introduced ourselves the organisers were a little taken aback. After a quick huddle they asked us to leave as they said “this is a private meeting”. Within minutes the meeting was adjourned. We could see the organisers telling their victims that something had happened and that the meeting was off.

As they were all leaving one of the organisers, "John", came over to me and said he wanted to talk some more at our office about Three Link Connection. He flatly denied that it was a scam and agreed with Daisy Mogale, the person at the top who I spoke to a couple of months ago. She told me then that “They’re all liars! All of them in Botswana are liars!” when I mentioned the number of complaints we'd had. John even claimed he was with Daisy when I called her.

So we'll see if John gets in touch. We'll see if he wants to put his side of the story. We'll see if any of the "investors" ever get their money back.

I doubt it. Like I said earlier, scammers don’t offer refunds or apologies. They just steal people’s money and ruin their lives.

Last minute update. Rumours are spreading that Oil of Asia has already had its accounts blocked. Watch this space.

Three Link Connection abandon a meeting because of me (updated)

A few days ago I was invited by one of the victims of the Three Link Connection scam to a meeting that was being held by the local organisers. The victims said:

"I am one of the people who have invested in this company. I lost a lot of money and am still struggling to get up after that blow. The people who were at the 'top' who all along had no answers for us have suddenly called a meeting to be held on Sat 23 at Wimpy western Bypass at 11 am. If you can, plis attend so you can meet the people who misled Batswana and maybe hear what empty promises they will be giving us this time around or another scheme to get more money from us.

I am hoping you will come even if you 'told us so'......"

Unfortunately it wasn't that simple.

I introduced myself to someone I thought might be involved and he confirmed I was in the right place with the right people. However he and another guy were very concerned that I had been invited. It was "a private meeting" they said. it was made very clear I wasn't welcome. So I had a coffee and watched through the window. After they had a hasty conversation they all suddenly left.

One of the organisers, "John", came over to me before he left and said he wanted to talk some more at my office about Three Link Connection. He flatly denied that it was a scam and agreed with Daisy Mogale, the person at the top who I spoke to a couple of months ago. She told me then that “They’re all liars! All of them in Botswana are liars!” when I mentioned the number of complaints we'd had. John even claimed he was with Daisy when I called her.

So we'll see if John gets in touch. We'll see if he wants to put his side of the story. We'll see if any of the "investors" ever get their money back.

I doubt it.

Crooks don't give refunds.

P.S. No, I don't feel bad abut taking their picture. "John" took plenty of me as well!

Update

One of the people who attended this meeting emailed me and said:

"The meeting was moved from Wimpy to a venue in Mogoditshane. The meeting organizers were not happy that someone had invited you. Anyway the bottom line is we are expected to give them more money to release our initial investment money. The Mogoditshane meeting was very chaotic and the details were not very clear as the organizer was not given much chance to explain how this was going to work."

That's a fairly common scam tactic. Once you've scammed someone and stolen their money you do your very best to get even more out of them. At least this group of victims seem more savvy now!

They're all liars!

Here’s a free tip for stores, suppliers and in fact anyone who sells things.

Don’t call your customers liars. It’s a bad move.

In the past I’ve written about a scheme calling itself Three Link Connection that people seem to be falling for across the country. The basic idea that this scheme sells is “arbitrage”. That’s a fancy way of saying you buying something cheap in one place so you can sell it at a higher price somewhere else. That’s an old business trick and there’s nothing inherently wrong with it. Plenty of companies make money that way, particularly when they deal with emerging markets like China with their massive, cheaply-employed workforce. They make things cheaply that are sold at a much higher price elsewhere.

The Three Link Connection scheme exploits this idea. This is what one reader told me:

“When we are recruited we are told the company is involved in selling electrical appliances sourced from China. The information is that the company has identified ready markets in Africa for this electrical appliances but do not have enough money to buy stock direct from the manufacturer in China. Therefore when we are recruited we are told the money we invest will be used to purchase the stock that will be later sold in Africa.”

Can you see where this is going yet?

I’ll let other people describe what actually happened instead. These are taken word-for-word from other messages we’ve received.

“This is how they said it works: You buy stock for R5400 and get R12500 after 10 weeks. Buy special and each unit is R4000 then get R10 000 after 16 working days.”

“Its still very difficult to get the whole details, but I think they lost some monies in this thing, was telling me was expecting 55K last month, but apparently tax issues blah blah. They have been hit.”

“I refused to join but my fiancee stubbornly secured a personal loan and invest the whole amount but up to now the she has not received the promised returns in investment.”

Three Link Connection is a scam, a fraud, a deception. They take your money, pretend they’re going to invest it in cheap Chinese products and then come up with endless excuses about why you’re not getting your money back.

This is nothing new of course. A very similar scam calling itself Young Star Investments operated in South Africa and in Uganda a few years ago. It was the same story and the same sort of victims.

A report in Uganda in 2008 said that Young Star:

“sources goods from China or Hong Kong using the money collected from its clients for sale in another country, from which the depositors are paid 30 percent interest on their investment after seven weeks. But five months down the road, most people who deposited their money in the company are crying foul play after realising that they could have been fleeced of their money.”

Sounds familiar?

In fact there’s a connection between Young Star Investments and Three Link Connection. The people behind it.

The founder of both scams, Daisy Mogale, was prosecuted in South Africa for the Young Star Investments scam but it seems like she’s at it again. Knowing she’s been exposed in South Africa she seems to have moved her attentions to us instead.

So far I’ve heard from nearly 20 people who’ve had the courage to come forward and confess that they’ve been scammed by this new scheme. Several of them have told me that they know of plenty of other people who’ve fallen victim as well. That’s been my experience of scams. For every person courageous enough to come forward and talk about how they’ve been scammed there are several others who are either too ashamed or embarrassed to come forward and talk about it.

So what does Daisy Mogale have to say about her scam? Let’s ask her.

One of the local recruiters for Three Link connection, who has presumably now realised it’s a scam and that they’re complicit in stealing people’s money, gave me Daisy’s cellphone number and I gave her a call.

Once she stopped shouting at me down the phone and demanding to know who gave me her cellphone number she gave me her reaction to the complaints we’d received.

“They’re all liars! All of them in Botswana are liars!”

So there we have it. Three Link Connection is legitimate and all of us in Botswana are liars. We know this because my new friend Daisy said so. She wouldn’t lie about this, would she? After all, why would we think she’s a liar? We can’t hold her previous history of scams against her, can we?

Daisy wasn’t the only one accusing a customer of lying. I heard a long story from someone who had bought a car from a supplier in the UK. She paid the local agent a large amount of money for a car he’d shown her online. The problem is that when it eventually arrived it wasn’t the car she ordered. The same model but a different registration number. There were other issues but the basic fact is that the car that was delivered was not the one she ordered. After some argument she rejected it.

Unfortunately the local agent wasn’t too helpful. She could only have her money back when they find another buyer for the vehicle. She’d have to wait.

So the reaction when I contacted the local agent? He accused me of blackmailing him, implied he’d sue me and said that the buyer was telling “a lie”.

Bad move. A seriously bad move. I’m obviously not blackmailing him, I’m just saying that the sort of person who immediately accuses his detractors of lying does not deserve anyone’s money.

That’s no lie.

The Voice - Consumer's Voice

Dear Consumer’s Voice #1

I ordered a fitted kitchen from a supplier in June and we only had a short time to complete the job. The order was placed when the company agreed to supply after 2 weeks. The colours available were very limited, I chose cream. The kitchen had to be fully paid for before full delivery.

When the kitchen was delivered and partially fitted it became obvious that all the components of the kitchen were different shades of cream. The doors are slightly pink, the fixed panels a yellow shade and the edging is green.

The company has inspected the kitchen and agrees that it is unsatisfactory. The different items were purchased from different suppliers on the basis of cost, and the problem is very common, apparently. The kitchen remains partially fitted. I spoke to the owner and she said she would evaluate different alternatives for sorting out the situation.

My question is do we have to pay for any changes? I have agreed to consider accepting a different, contrasting colour for the doors and left her with my phone number so she could contact me with the alternatives and the cost of those alternatives. It is now more than a week later and I have received no information.

Your advice on this would be appreciated.

Frankly I don’t give a damn whether “the problem is very common” or not. You specifically ordered a fitted kitchen of a particular color and they delivered something different. I’m not a lawyer but this sounds to me to be a breach of contract, unless you knowingly signed something that allowed them to deliver items of colors of their choice, did you? I suspect not.

I suggest that you write them a letter explaining that they have not honored their side of your agreement, that they have breached Section 13 (1) (a) of the Consumer Protection Regulations which forbids a supplier from delivering something that “does not match any … description given to the consumer”. Remind them that they offered you a cream-colored kitchen, you didn’t get one. It’s very simple.

Give them a few days to come up with a solution otherwise you’ll take any legal action that you consider suitable. If they don’t cooperate then write them another letter saying that you’ll ask for a judgment from the Small Claims Court.

Let me know how they react!

Dear Consumer’s Voice #2

I wonder how far do you function as a consumer watchdog? Do you just expose scammers or do you go to an extent of helping the consumer to recover by nailing the scammers and get them prosecuted?

I say this because a day after I nearly lost my money to this scam, I came across your post and tried to warn others of this but unfortunately some had already put their monies in it. They usually come in Francistown to lure many people into the so-called investment. To my surprise, some of them are Batswana who claim that this isn’t a scam and that they have received their returns.

How can these people be nailed?

This email came into us in response to our report on a so-called “investment scheme” calling itself “Three Link Connection”. These people require “investors” to give them P11,800 and they apparently promise that this will double within 4 weeks. As you can imagine this is yet another scam. No genuine, respectable investment scheme can offer this sort of return. This is either a pyramid scheme, or more likely a Ponzi scheme where the joining fees paid by later “investors” are paid to earlier “investors”. In fact there is no investment scheme at all, money just flows from later to earlier victims. Some people at the beginning make a little money but sooner or later they run out of willing victims and it all falls apart.

This particular scheme seems to be a reincarnation of an earlier South Africa scam called “Young Stars Investments”. The founder of that particular scam, Daisy Mogale, was prosecuted in South Africa but it seems like she’s at it again. She’s presumably no longer welcome to do business in SA so has moved north to scam us instead. Why don’t we run her and her dodgy scheme out of town?

Scam update

Have you ever wondered by scams are so obvious to spot? Don’t we all know by now that emails from total strangers offering us vast amounts of money are scams? Aren’t they blindingly obvious?

The surprising news is that’s exactly why they work. Research by a researcher at Microsoft showed that the more ridiculous that opening email is, the fewer skeptical people will reply. Only the truly gullible reply to obvious scams. That opening email acts as a filter for the scammer. The people that reply have already proved themselves to be utterly gullible and naïve. The lesson is never to believe anything you read on your Inbox unless you have a VERY good reason to do so!

Ponzi schemes

There’s a very, very small part of me that admires Carlo Pietro Giovanni Guglielmo Tebaldo Ponzi and not just because he had an awesome name. I “admire” him in the same way that I “admire” other crooks like the creator of the So-Called Church of Scientology, L Ron Hubbard, the televangelist healer Peter Popoff and the most recent conman of astonishing proportions, Bernie Madoff.

I admire them in the same way that I admire mosquitos, cockroaches and rats. I respect the extent of their achievements and their fortitude but I still find them immensely irritating, unpleasant and worthy of a swift hit on the head with a blunt instrument.

Let me explain before you think I’m a Scientologist supporter of scammers and ripoff artists.

L Ron Hubbard achieved what many have fantasized about but few have ever achieved. He founded a religion, became immensely wealthy, had access to his choices of intoxicants and women, owned his own private navy and died in luxurious drug-addled haze. Who could ask for better? Yes, of course he lied about his military career in the US Navy (he was incompetent and considered unsuitable for command), his scientific career (he claimed to have studied nuclear physics but in fact he attended one class and got a ‘F’ grade) and his adventures as an explorer (he lied) but he did show promise as the author of ninth-rate science fiction novels. (You can see his unathorized biography here.)

It was this skill that enabled him to create his own religion and to persuade people to hand over epic quantities of money. I admire that, in a bizarre way.

Peter Popoff was (and remains) as much of a con-man. His ability to “see” the personal details of sick people who came to his conventions was remarkable. He would “know” everything about his gullible victims in the audiences, including the illnesses they were suffering and even their home addresses. Of course this was all a huge con. The attendees would all fill in a questionnaire as they arrived and then Popoff’s wife would read the details to him over a radio link to a tiny receiver in his ear. After Popoff’s scam was exposed by James Randi bankrupt rapidly ensued. However that didn’t stop him bouncing back a few years later appearing on TV selling “miracle spring water”, “holy sand” and more smarmy cons. Like Hubbard Popoff is a disgraceful conman but you can’t deny that he has backbone and a complete absence of shame.

Bernie Madoff has the great distinction of having committed the greatest financial fraud in US history. Estimates vary but the official estimate is that investors lost up to $17 billion. Yes, billion, not million. He’s currently in prison and, if he behaves himself inside, he’ll be released at the age of 201.

Madoff’s scheme was simple. He would take money from investors and instead of actually investing it, he would just deposit it into an account with Chase Manhattan Bank. When investors wanted a return on their investment he’d just write them a cheque from that account. Because most investors expected their money to stay “invested”” for a long time they rarely wanted their entire stake back. He was, as they say, robbing Peter to pay Paul.

This is the essence of a Ponzi scheme, named after Carlo Ponzi. Ponzi actually learnt the technique from a former employer, a bank that focused on Italian immigrants to Canada, Banco Zarossi. Wikipedia describe the Zarossi scam perfectly.

“Zarossi was funding the interest payments not through profit on investments, but by using money deposited in newly opened accounts.”

That’s the lesson that Ponzi learned and what remains at the heart of a Ponzi scheme to this day. Ponzi’s later scheme pretended to exploit the difference between the price of postal coupons in Italy compared to the USA. In theory you could buy them cheaply in Italy and sell them much more expensively in the US. It’s what economists called “arbitrage”. However what Ponzi wanted was investors. They thought they were buying into the postal coupon scheme but in fact they were victims of the same scheme that Zarossi had run. Interest wasn’t being earned on investments at all, it just came directly from the deposits other victims had made. It all relied on the investors choosing to continue investing rather than cashing in their profits. So long as there was enough cash in the account those fake interest payments could be made. That’s a Ponzi scheme.

They haven’t gone away.

Currently doing the rounds in Botswana is a scheme calling itself “Three Link Connections”. This is how one potential victim described their scheme:

“The company has identified a market in Africa for Chinese electrical appliances but do not have enough money to buy stock direct from the manufacturer in China. When we are recruited we are told the money we invest will be used to purchase the stock that will be later sold the ready found market in Africa at a higher price.”

You see the “arbitrage” opportunity? Buy cheap goods in Chine and sell them at a higher price here? In theory there’s no problem with that. But there’s more. The person running this scheme has already been prosecuted for running identical Ponzi schemes in South Africa. That’s enough to be suspicious I think.

Similar are the foreign exchange schemes people are investing in. I suspect that many, if not all of these might be Ponzi schemes. You can certainly tell some of them. I saw one that promised 500% in 25 minutes. Clearly that’s a scam but so are the ones who offer a few percent per day. I saw another called EurExTrade that promised 2.9% per day. A year at that rate would convert an investment of P1,000 to P34 million.

The spirit of Charles Ponzi lives on!

The Voice - Consumer's Voice

Dear Consumer’s Voice #1

I received two of the same emails last week from a company called Creative Employment. Is this a scam? I checked their website but what is making me suspicious is where in heaven did they get my email address and their contact number which starts with +32 looks a bit suspicious.

Kindly investigate for me?

I think you’re right to be suspicious. Although “Creative Employment Abroad” (their complete name) is a registered company in the UK there’s a bit too much that’s suspicious about them. They describe themselves on their web site as “a leading independent law firm, highly specialized in corporate and private immigration law, employment law, European and international migration law.” That’s curious.

Firstly, because they were only registered as a company on 12th September last year and secondly, no law firm with that name appears to be registered with the UK’s Law Society. The address they give in London is also suspicious. It’s the same address that’s given for at least 80 other companies because it’s just one of the many “virtual offices” you can rent online. They share this address with companies as varied as money lenders, debt advisors and even a sex toy distributor. Charming company they have.

I also find it strange that they give a phone number that begins +32 as that’s the international dialing code for Belgium. Why would that be? It’s also NOT the number that they give on their web site. Like you I am always extremely suspicious of anyone who emails me out of the blue offering me things. Particularly when, as this company does, they want your money. In order to “register” with Creative Employment you need to pay them R600.

What’s more, they make some ambitious claims in their email. They say, for instance that whether “your visa has been denied before we assist and make sure you visa gets approved”. Nobody can really make that guarantee, certainly not a “leading independent law firm” that can’t spell.

I think that all of this is too suspicious and I suggest you just delete their email.

Dear Consumer’s Voice #2

I bought a laptop last year January for P6,500 including insurance and I’m still paying for it with monthly installments.

This year in January my laptop was stolen by my brother from our home and I reported him to the Police. He is currently serving one year six months imprisonment for the theft because the laptop was never recovered. I went back to the store with the police report thinking I would be compensated but unfortunately they said their insurer couldn’t cover me because it was my brother who committed the crime.

So if it was someone else I could be covered? They are saying maybe there is foul play but if that was the case I wouldn’t have reported the theft to the police. I’m still paying for the laptop monthly even though its not there.

This sounds unreasonable. If they have evidence that there’s “foul play” then they should produce it. Until they produce that evidence surely the facts are simple. Someone, it doesn’t matter who, stole your laptop and is currently enjoying The State’s hospitality as a result. However I suspect the problem will be in the small print of your insurance policy. It’s likely that it will exclude thefts from the home when there’s been no forcible entry. Without a broken window they’ll be able to get out of paying you. However, please, dear readers of The Voice, don’t be tempted to fake a break-in to claim on your insurance. You’ll be the one who ends up in prison!

Nevertheless we’ll get in touch with the store and see what they say for themselves.

Investment update

We’re now hearing from many people who have encountered “Three Link Connection” the deeply suspicious pyramid scheme that’s going around the country. We heard from someone who “invested” over P5,000 and was promised a return of P26,000 within 3 months. Other people have even taken out bank loans to buy into the scheme and, of course, haven’t seen that money again. Be warned! This is a scam, it’s certainly illegal and sooner or later someone’s going to be arrested!

Three Link Connection - an update

MANY people have been in touch about "Three Link Connection", asking if this really is a scam. These are some of the things people have said:

"I joined this EARLY February this year, this coming weekend they said there will be a meeting in Joburg an I promised to be there. This is how they said it works: You buy stock for R5,400 and get R12,500 after 10 weeks. Buy special and each unit is R4,000 then get R10,000 after 16 working days."

"A friend has jus invited me to join and invest in the company, I wnt to knw if its genuine if at all you knw something about it."

"When we are recruited we are told the company is involved in selling electrical appliances sourced from China. The information is that the company has identified ready market in Africa for this electrical appliances but do not have enough money to buy stock direct from the manufacturer in China. Therefore when we are recruited we are told the money we invest will be used to purchase the stock that will be later sold the ready found market in Africa."

"I refused to join but my fiancee stubbornly secured a personal loan and invest the whole amount but up to now the she has not received the promised returns in investment. Can you please confirm if this is a scam."

"It operates like this, You deposit money into their accounts based in South Africa and after a certain specific period you get twice your money depending on the amount you have deposited. I am wondering whether its genuinely and safe to do so, or it is just another scam."

Look closely at the things these people say. You can get a 131% profit on an investment in just 10 weeks? Or 150% in just 16 working days? That business about buying Chinese electronics for Africa but the company doesn't have enough cash to buy them? Surely with 150% profits they'll be rolling in cash by now?
Add to this the apparent history of these people being investigated and, I'm told, being shut down in South Africa and you have FAR too much reason to be suspicious about them. Newspapers in South Africa reported the prosecution of the founder of the earlier scheme in South Africa here and here including this:

"Young Stars Investments told Mabyana that the company imported goods from abroad and sold them locally for a big profit. He was told that his R70000 would rake in a profit of R80000 over 12 months."

There were also newspaper reports of their demise in Uganda here which included:

"Young Star Trading then sources goods from China or Hong Kong using the money collected from its clients for sale in another country, from which the depositors are paid 30 percent interest on their investment after seven weeks.
But five months down the road, most people who deposited their money in the company are crying foul play after realising that they could have been fleeced of their money."

Does that sound familiar? This is a scam. Stay FAR away from them!

The Voice - Consumer's Voice

Dear Consumer’s Voice #1

I received an email from a friend that said:

“WARNING!!!!!! Don’t buy and drink a newly introduced bottled water product called “DEW”. The Department of Customs says it was shipped from Tanzania . It killed 180 people. Its said to contain poisonous chemical. Please forward to your departments, relatives and friends.”

Is this true?

No, this is certainly NOT true. It’s a hoax.

This email, and variations of it, have been circulating for a long time. At one point the supposed deaths had happened in Nigeria but the Nigerian authorities investigated and reported that there was absolutely no truth to the story. Surely if this was true we’d be hearing about it on the radio, in The Voice and on TV instead of by email? You really have to consider how trustworthy the medium is. Emails are NOT a very trustworthy source of information on health issues.

I suggest that you go back to the person who sent you the email, suggest to them that they should do a Google search for this and find out the facts before circulating hoaxes and wasting their employers bandwidth.

Dear Consumer’s Voice #2

I bought a butter cream cake at a supermarket for my kids, but we realized that the cake was not in a good state to be eaten because its taste was sour and it was having a gassy smell.

I took the cake back to the shop the following day where I was helped by a manager or shop assistant (not sure) and she told me that to her the cake is ok and they is nothing she can help me with. I asked to see her senior and she told me that she is the last person I can see as the manager is not around and she took the cake and did not refund with anything. She told me to leave as they is nothing she can help me with.

You don’t have to be a food hygiene specialist to know that this is completely unacceptable. Not only is it discourteous and disrespectful, it’s also contrary to the Consumer Protection Regulations, the Food Control Act and the Public Health Regulations. It’s potentially life-threatening. Don’t forget that although the most common victims of food poisoning are the very young, the very old and the frail and unwell, it can also kill the healthiest of people extremely rapidly. I’m sure we’ve all had minor doses of food poisoning but the next one might be the one that kills you.

Luckily this issue was sorted out fairly quickly. The store manager called the customer and apologized profusely, gave him a full refund and promised him that this will never happen again. Meanwhile the store clearly needs to train it’s staff on basic food hygiene standards as well as how to deal with customers who have reasonable complaints!

Investment update

Several people have now contacted us about an “investment scheme” calling itself ”Three Link Connection”. They require “investors” to give them P11,800 and they apparently promise that this will double within 4 weeks. As you can imagine this is yet another scam. In fact, this seems to be a reincarnation of an earlier scam that was called “Young Stars Investments”. The founder of that particular scam, Daisy Mogale, was prosecuted in South Africa but it seems like she’s back again.

The lesson is simple, so simple that it should really need to be said. There is no way you can make money as fast as these scammers will suggest. Surely if it was possible banks would be doing it all the time? The only people to get right from Get Rich Quick schemes are the scammers who invent them.

We’ll be speaking to the authorities that have the power to intervene with schemes likes these and giving then the information they need to take action. Watch this space!

Education

When Tony Blair, the former British Prime Minister, was first running for the office (and before he discarded his conscience) he famously outlined the three main priorities for his prospective government. They were, he said, “Education, education, education”.

While there are many critical things you can say about Blair that was a noble sentiment. I genuinely believe that one of the key roles of Government, along with the provision of health care, roads, defense and policing is education. Critically though I don’t think this stops when someone leaves school or university. I think the Government and its various specialist agencies have an on-going job to educate us, just like we should have an on-going desire to learn.

Some of these agencies actually have education in their job description. The Consumer Protection Unit in the Ministry of Trade and Industry was set up specifically to do this. Section 5 (2) (a) of the Consumer Protection Act says that one of their jobs is to:

“disseminate information to enable consumers to acquire knowledge of basic consumer rights and obligations and the skills needed to make informed choices about goods and services”

The next section of the Act says that they must “formulate and implement consumer education programmes”.

Forgive me but I don’t see this happening. Was it that weekend when I was away?

But they’re not the only culprit. I think we need to see much more public education coming from a range of sources. The most obvious is the Ministry of Education. Why aren’t our children learning about their consumer rights at school? Why isn’t it part of the curriculum? And what about adult education? Isn’t this a critical thing that they should be doing? Educating the public on their rights?

To be fair, there are some governmental agencies that do at least operate in public. Both BOTA, the Training Authority and NBFIRA, the Non-Bank Financial Institutions Regulatory Authority have been known to roll up their sleeves and get rough with colleges and companies that misbehave. Just as importantly they’ve done it publicly so you and I can both see that they’re doing something. But I think we deserve more. I think we need to hear from them how they do this, what the rules are and, most importantly, how we can protect ourselves against crooks and scammers. I think we need advice from agencies like BOTA and NBFIRA on what to look out for, what the warning signs might be and perhaps even some horror stories of how things can go wrong. There’s certainly no shortage of them.

But let’s not stop there. Let’s start demanding that other agencies do the same. They’re all paid large amounts of money to exist, let’s demand just a little bit more from them.

The Bank of Botswana for instance. I know they spend most of their time doing very worthy things like worrying about exchange rates and how much money we have in the national piggy bank but they also have a responsibility to regulate business. In fact they have the power to inspect and control companies if “it appears to the Bank that the company is carrying on business in a manner which is contrary to, detrimental to, the interests of the public”. That’s fine but let’s see it being done.

A couple of months ago there was a press release from BOB announcing that they had taken action to stop a pyramid scheme operating but unfortunately it wasn’t any of the pyramid schemes that most people know about like TVI Express. However it was clearly better than nothing. But we need more, a lot more and again we need education from BOB. We need them to educate us on what to look out for, what the clues are that a scheme is dodgy.

However it’s not always difficult to spot them. Last week we were approached by a reader who asked about a scheme he had been invited to join by a colleague. Calling itself “Three Link Connection” they invite prospective “investors” to invest nearly P12,000 and guarantee a 100% profit within 4 weeks. I think it’s fairly obvious that this can’t work. There’s no investment scheme in the world that can promise to double your money in a month, we all know that, don’t we? We know that anyone saying that is a fool or a crook, don’t we?

However the story is more interesting than just a conventional scam. This is a reincarnation. It seems that this is just an old scam with a new name. The founders, South Africans apparently called Hennie Visser and Daisy Mojale, were previously investigated in SA for running another investment scam that was variously called “Young Stars Investments”, “Double Star Investments” and “Triple Star Investments”. It’s alleged that they stole millions of Rand from hundreds of people.

The problem is that, perhaps partially because we’re a small country, but also because our enforcement agencies aren’t quite as busy as we need them to be, scammers like these think they can come to Botswana and get away with their crimes more easily than in their home countries.

I think we deserve more from these agencies than we currently get. We need more enforcement action from them but also more education. It shouldn’t just be up to newspapers like Mmegi to get these things done. I look forward to a situation where the biggest fear companies have in Botswana is not from mindless and pointless bureaucracy but from effective and highly-focussed regulation. I look forward even more to a time when crooks are genuinely afraid of a highly educated population of consumers.

The Voice - Consumer's Voice

Dear Consumer’s Voice #1

I booked and paid for tickets for my nephews to travel to Botswana from Ghana but they were prevented from travelling because they lacked a transit visa to travel via South Africa. I had applied for a visa for them to enter Botswana but did not know about the transit visa. As it is, the adult accompanying them had a Botswana residence and work permit so apparently did not need a transit visa and he had to leave them behind in South Africa. They have applied for it and we expect it out in 5 working days but I now have to pay penalties for the tickets. This I feel is unfair because I think the ticket sales agents should have informed me of the need for a transit visa as she knew I was booking for kids who were travelling on a Botswana visa and not permits.

In addition, I have to pay extra for the children who are 12 and 3 years of age to be managed by the flight attendants as they travel alone.

Is this something I should have known and enquired with the South African High Commissioner or should the ticket sales lady have informed me?

This is tricky. My initial reaction was that I agree that the travel agent issuing the tickets should probably have told you this. Surely it’s one of the reasons you use a travel agent, to use their expertise and knowledge about all these bizarre technicalities? Aren’t they meant to be the experts?

However there is a dual responsibility here. Both the buyer and the seller in a deal have to protect their own interests. Perhaps you also should have done some checking about these things although it’s understandable why you wouldn’t think to do so. I know it’s no comfort to know that your experience will help educate readers of The Voice about these issues.

The lesson is to do some research before these things happen. If you search on Google for “south africa visa exempt countries” you’ll find that Batswana and citizens of many other countries don’t require transit visas when they’re going through SA but for some reason Ghana is excluded.

Whenever you undertake a journey you’ve never done it’s worth spending a little time beforehand doing a bit of research to prevent problems like this occurring.

Investment scheme warnings

I’ve heard of several so-called investment schemes over the last year that you really need to avoid. Each of them has been presented to potential victims as a fail-safe way of making money with minimal risk. However they are ALL cons. They are all scams.

The common link is that they all offer returns on your ”investment” that are too good to believe. TVI Express is a good example although I think the word has finally spread that this is a pyramid scheme. Unlike a normal multi-level marketing scheme there is no real product with TVI Express. Instead we’ve heard of people promised massive profits on modest investment. One reader was asked to invest P30,000 and was promised, in writing, a total return of P168,000 within a mere 3 months. Needless to say this money never materialized. It was a scam. She had to go to court to get her money back.

More recently we heard about a bunch of South Africans calling themselves Cashflow Pro who were under investigation by the SA authorities, who came here seeking our money. Again the profits they offered were remarkable. Remarkably unbelievable.

Recently we heard from a reader who had been invited to join another Get Rich Quick scheme calling itself ”Three Link Connection”. They require “investors” to give them P11,800 and they apparently promise that this will double within 4 weeks. As you can imagine this is yet another scam. In fact, it seems that it’s actually a reincarnation of an earlier scam that was called “Young Stars Investments”. The founder of that particular scam, Daisy Mogale, was prosecuted in South Africa but it seems like she’s back again.

The lesson is simple, so simple that it should really need to be said. There is no way you can make money as fast as these scammers will suggest. Surely if it was possible banks would be doing it all the time? The only people to get right from Get Rich Quick schemes are the scammers who invent them.

Consumer Alert: "Three Link Connection"

This "investment scheme", apparently offering 100% profits within 4 weeks is a scam. Previously called “Young Stars Investments” the organizers were investigated and shut down in South Africa but have reincarnated themselves. You have been warned.