WeeklySA_AdminSHADY SECOND-hand car dealerships that thrive on swindling unsuspecting customers of their hard-earned money, while ignoring the laws that regulate their businesses, promote a culture of impunity.
It is public knowledge that their business credo is hardly fair trade, but to make a quick buck through selling proverbial lemons to the public.
Anyone familiar with this topic will tell you the most common name or image that is most likely to come up whenever the issue of fly-by-night car dealers and spare parts merchants is mentioned – without fail, Jules Street in the eastern Johannesburg suburb of Malvern.
The street is legendary for being infested by all kinds of tsotsi car merchants – actually from the 1970s, consumer stories filled with utter sorrow have played out with drama along this notorious stretch.
For example, a customer would buy a car purely on account of the engine being clean, piping out a clean noise from the engine and exhaust pipe, only for it belch out goods-train smog a day or so later.
When an angry customer calls back to complain, the dealer would either have vacated the premises or be decidedly unapproachable the following day.
Fast forward, a new generation of car merchants have since moved onto the street, armed with the same unscrupulous intent – all to fleece a pliable customer of his or her money.
The script is still the same, only that the characters this time are mainly foreign nationals with suspect identity papers or no identity documents at all.
Worse, the goods could either vehicles written off by insurance companies post-accident or suspiciously stolen cars.
It is common knowledge that some car dealerships along the street have been getting away with murder for years, breaking the laws with impunity and with the authorities shying away from their duty of taking action against the culprits.
This week, our team accompanied law enforcement officers from the SAPS, Department of Labour, Consumer Affairs and Business Compliance during the raid on some of these companies. It was established that most of them were not even registered while others operated with expired certificates.
These dealerships do not issue warranties to consumers as required in terms of the Consumer Protection Act of 2009, there are no refunds, no exchanges and there is no return clause on their receipts which is in contravention of this Act. This is shocking.
Just as disturbing is the crackdown by law enforcement agencies did not even scare off these unscrupulous companies, even warnings that they will be closed down.
It turned out that some were multiple offenders and were indifferent to multiple directives to comply with the law.
On the other hand, lack of capacity among the law enforcement agencies during the raid was rather glaring, a worrying factor if the law must make a strong show of force and firm hand.
Likewise, when there are no consequences for willful transgressions, offenders will happily continue with their nefarious activities with impunity.
Surely police must be aware of the importance of carrying out such raids in full readiness and resoluteness to show an unbending arm of the law.
