The Voice - Consumer's Voice

How long must this take? 

I have an issue with a filling station for putting wrong fuel in my car. It has been going for 6th month without my car. The manager for the filling station where this happened states that the matter is handled by their insurer. I was told for any further communication I should speak to the insurer. 

The first bit of good news is that this filling station are dealing with the issue. They seem to understand that their employee’s mistake caused damage to your car and they’ve submitted a claim to their insurer to pay to fix it. 

Then there’s bad news. Why is this taking so long? How complicated can this situation be? To me it seems very simple. They damaged your car and they need to pay for it to be fixed. The next bit of bad news is that the filling station want you to do all the hard work. Why? There’s absolutely no need for you to contact their insurance company. They work for the filling station, not you and it’s the job of the filling station management to make the phone calls, send the emails and insist on a rapid solution. It’s not your job. 

The final bit of good news is that I contacted the filling station manager and they promised to take action. They said they’ll let me know when some progress can be made. 

Is it legal? 

Is it legal that when you owe an entity or a cash loan and when they get their money they get all the money without leaving you any survival money for the month. They took all the money in my account and I can’t even pay rent or any buy any usables. 

I’m not an attorney so I can’t offer you legal advice but as far as I know, there are no restrictions on what a microlender can take from you. 

I suspect that the microlender would argue that you entered into this loan agreement of your own free will as a sane, grown adult and it’s therefore your job to ensure you can afford the loan you took from them. They would argue that they don’t know for sure how much you earn, how much you spend, how much you owe other lenders and, therefore, how much you can afford to pay them. 

But I think it IS their job to know that. Before any microlender lends us money, they should do their best to discover these things. Instead of just getting us to sign a deal, send us the money and get their monthly payments, they need to do some work to understand our financial situation. Can we really afford the loan? They need to do this for our benefit but also for theirs. We don’t want to default on our loans and they shouldn’t want us to default either. 

Our cousins across the border in South Africa are protected by laws against what they call “reckless lending”, The South African National Credit Act requires a lender to thoroughly assess if a borrower can truly afford the loan being offered. If it’s later discovered that the lender failed to do sufficient checks, the debt can be declared as “reckless lending” and the loan can even be reversed.

We need something similar here in Botswana. I know some borrowers are reckless and irresponsible but many just need some protections against making foolish mistakes. And the microlenders? They can afford to be a bit more careful. They make enough profit from their customers, they can afford to spend a bit more time being more careful.