In this weekly segment of bite-sized chunks of useful information, consumer journalist Wendy Knowler summarises news you can use:
How to avoid rogue tow truck operators
Many tow truck operators offer an invaluable service at accident scenes and beyond.
But sadly there are some rogue operators on our streets, and they resort to very underhanded tactics to dupe people into releasing their cars to them — and then charge outrageous daily storage fees on top of a really high towing fee.
How do they do it?
Well, Esti’s driver’s experience on a busy Durban road last weekend is fairly typical. He had an accident a couple of Saturdays ago, and because Esti couldn’t get hold of her insurance broker at the time, she accepted the quote given by the first tow truck driver to arrive at the scene.
“I blindly accepted in good faith that this company was legit,” she said.
“The driver pulled out his docket, checked all the parts, made me sign it and off he went with the vehicle.”
Later that day Esti contacted the company to arrange to get the vehicle released.
“They wanted R7,500 to release the vehicle, having towed it the 5km distance to their storage facility,” she said.
“The company had told me that they work with my insurer, but when I checked later, they do not.”
That R7,500 had escalated to R11,900 by the Monday.
“This despite being told that they charge R450 per day for storage,” Esti said.
A representative of her insurer’s approved towing company later negotiated that figure back to the still exorbitant R7,500 to secure the release of the vehicle.
Know this: law enforcement can give a towing operator at an accident scene a lawful instruction to remove the vehicle off the roadway to the side of the road at no cost. With that done, you are free to decide who tows your vehicle. Never sign any document where the costs are not stipulated on the front of the authorising form to remove the vehicle.
If you have insurance, save the name and number of your insurer’s towing hotline on your cellphone, and call them when you’re in an accident and your car needs towing. If you aren’t insured, save the SA Towing & Recovery Association's (Satra) 24-hour line — 0861072872 — on your cellphone, and if you're involved in an accident, call them for details of a Satra member in your area. Ditto the United Towing Association of SA (Utasa): 0861188272.
Never let anyone phone your insurance company on your behalf, and don’t take their word for it that they are on your insurer’s list of approved towers.
Get all the tow truck company's details before they disappear with your car: full name of the driver, the company's physical address and landline number, and the registration number of the truck.
Be very clear about where you want the vehicle to be towed, and make sure this is written on the form.
If insured, call your insurer very soon after your car has been towed to ensure all is in order. If not insured, and your car has been towed to a tow-truck company’s yard, make arrangements to have it collected as soon as possible to avoid sky-high storage fees.
Avoid paying by EFT when online shopping
One of the best reasons to pay for goods or services with your credit card is the ability to get your money back if you don’t get what you paid for. It’s called chargeback, and it’s a consumer protection offered globally by credit card companies Mastercard and Visa, via their issuing banks
Among the case studies featured in the ombudsman for banking services’ (OBS) annual report for 2022, released last week, is one involving a chargeback request being denied by a bank.
The OBS included it as a warning to consumers that chargebacks are not possible when purchases are made by electronic funds transfer (EFT). It’s why many scam websites require payment by EFT and do not include credit cards as a payment option.
“The complainant was scammed into making an EFT payment for a holiday,” the OBS said in its report. “After realising he was scammed, he requested his bank to effect a chargeback, but the bank advised that they are only able to process chargebacks where a card was presented for payment, authorised and approved through a merchant terminal — either a point-of-sale device or an e-commerce gateway.”
The OBS sided with the bank in this case
“An EFT is considered a cash transaction where the payment method transfers the funds directly to the party you intend to pay,” the office said.
“And an EFT is regulated by the Payment Association of South Africa, which precludes banks from reversing funds without the account holder’s consent.”
Clearly, no scammer is going to give their consent ...
About those lease agreement fees
“Have you ever looked into what competing estate agents charge as lease agreement fees?” That question came from Sharon, who has beef with the amounts tenants pay for the drawing up of such agreements.
“When I sold my home last year in order to rent, I paid R500 for a lease agreement after advising the agent that I was not going to pay R1,000 for it,” she said.
“I am now moving again and the lease agreement fee being asked by one agent is R1,500, and by another R950, discounted to R750 (when she pushed back).
“These agents literally copy and paste each tenant’s details onto a lease agreement that’s been in circulation for years,” she said.
“There doesn’t seem to be any cap on these so-called “drawn-up” leases and as a result, agents charge ridiculous amounts for them.”
Cape Town-based specialist property attorney Marlon Shevelew of Marlon Shevelew and Associates said nothing precluded property practitioners from charging such a fee, provided that it is set out in the mandate and/or lease.
“The landlord pays the agency in terms of the mandate, and the tenant will only be liable (to the landlord) for the amounts which the lease specifies,” he said.
“But that doesn’t mean they can charge completely outrageous fees for this service,” Shevelew said.
“Since property practitioners are rendering a service, they might — depending on who they are delivering the service to — be subject to the Consumer Protection Act’s section 48,” Shevelew said.
That section states that a supplier must not offer to supply or enter into an agreement to supply, any goods or services “at a price that is unfair, unreasonable or unjust”.
“Anything between R1,000 and R1,500 appears to be a reasonable administration fee currently,” he said.
“And if a consumer feels aggrieved by a fee, then all the remedies in terms of the CPA would be available to them.”
The most practical course of action would be to lodge a complaint with the ombudsman for consumer goods and services.
But first, follow Sharon’s example and don’t meekly accept the lease agreement fee being charged. Push back and negotiate a sizeable reduction.
TimesLIVE
Support independent journalism by subscribing to the Sunday Times. Just R20 for the first month.
Rogue tow truck operators and EFTs when shopping online: watch-outs of the week
Image: Thamkc/Stock
In this weekly segment of bite-sized chunks of useful information, consumer journalist Wendy Knowler summarises news you can use:
How to avoid rogue tow truck operators
Many tow truck operators offer an invaluable service at accident scenes and beyond.
But sadly there are some rogue operators on our streets, and they resort to very underhanded tactics to dupe people into releasing their cars to them — and then charge outrageous daily storage fees on top of a really high towing fee.
How do they do it?
Well, Esti’s driver’s experience on a busy Durban road last weekend is fairly typical. He had an accident a couple of Saturdays ago, and because Esti couldn’t get hold of her insurance broker at the time, she accepted the quote given by the first tow truck driver to arrive at the scene.
“I blindly accepted in good faith that this company was legit,” she said.
“The driver pulled out his docket, checked all the parts, made me sign it and off he went with the vehicle.”
Later that day Esti contacted the company to arrange to get the vehicle released.
“They wanted R7,500 to release the vehicle, having towed it the 5km distance to their storage facility,” she said.
“The company had told me that they work with my insurer, but when I checked later, they do not.”
That R7,500 had escalated to R11,900 by the Monday.
“This despite being told that they charge R450 per day for storage,” Esti said.
A representative of her insurer’s approved towing company later negotiated that figure back to the still exorbitant R7,500 to secure the release of the vehicle.
Know this: law enforcement can give a towing operator at an accident scene a lawful instruction to remove the vehicle off the roadway to the side of the road at no cost. With that done, you are free to decide who tows your vehicle. Never sign any document where the costs are not stipulated on the front of the authorising form to remove the vehicle.
If you have insurance, save the name and number of your insurer’s towing hotline on your cellphone, and call them when you’re in an accident and your car needs towing. If you aren’t insured, save the SA Towing & Recovery Association's (Satra) 24-hour line — 0861072872 — on your cellphone, and if you're involved in an accident, call them for details of a Satra member in your area. Ditto the United Towing Association of SA (Utasa): 0861188272.
Never let anyone phone your insurance company on your behalf, and don’t take their word for it that they are on your insurer’s list of approved towers.
Get all the tow truck company's details before they disappear with your car: full name of the driver, the company's physical address and landline number, and the registration number of the truck.
Be very clear about where you want the vehicle to be towed, and make sure this is written on the form.
If insured, call your insurer very soon after your car has been towed to ensure all is in order. If not insured, and your car has been towed to a tow-truck company’s yard, make arrangements to have it collected as soon as possible to avoid sky-high storage fees.
Avoid paying by EFT when online shopping
One of the best reasons to pay for goods or services with your credit card is the ability to get your money back if you don’t get what you paid for. It’s called chargeback, and it’s a consumer protection offered globally by credit card companies Mastercard and Visa, via their issuing banks
Among the case studies featured in the ombudsman for banking services’ (OBS) annual report for 2022, released last week, is one involving a chargeback request being denied by a bank.
The OBS included it as a warning to consumers that chargebacks are not possible when purchases are made by electronic funds transfer (EFT). It’s why many scam websites require payment by EFT and do not include credit cards as a payment option.
“The complainant was scammed into making an EFT payment for a holiday,” the OBS said in its report. “After realising he was scammed, he requested his bank to effect a chargeback, but the bank advised that they are only able to process chargebacks where a card was presented for payment, authorised and approved through a merchant terminal — either a point-of-sale device or an e-commerce gateway.”
The OBS sided with the bank in this case
“An EFT is considered a cash transaction where the payment method transfers the funds directly to the party you intend to pay,” the office said.
“And an EFT is regulated by the Payment Association of South Africa, which precludes banks from reversing funds without the account holder’s consent.”
Clearly, no scammer is going to give their consent ...
About those lease agreement fees
“Have you ever looked into what competing estate agents charge as lease agreement fees?” That question came from Sharon, who has beef with the amounts tenants pay for the drawing up of such agreements.
“When I sold my home last year in order to rent, I paid R500 for a lease agreement after advising the agent that I was not going to pay R1,000 for it,” she said.
“I am now moving again and the lease agreement fee being asked by one agent is R1,500, and by another R950, discounted to R750 (when she pushed back).
“These agents literally copy and paste each tenant’s details onto a lease agreement that’s been in circulation for years,” she said.
“There doesn’t seem to be any cap on these so-called “drawn-up” leases and as a result, agents charge ridiculous amounts for them.”
Cape Town-based specialist property attorney Marlon Shevelew of Marlon Shevelew and Associates said nothing precluded property practitioners from charging such a fee, provided that it is set out in the mandate and/or lease.
“The landlord pays the agency in terms of the mandate, and the tenant will only be liable (to the landlord) for the amounts which the lease specifies,” he said.
“But that doesn’t mean they can charge completely outrageous fees for this service,” Shevelew said.
“Since property practitioners are rendering a service, they might — depending on who they are delivering the service to — be subject to the Consumer Protection Act’s section 48,” Shevelew said.
That section states that a supplier must not offer to supply or enter into an agreement to supply, any goods or services “at a price that is unfair, unreasonable or unjust”.
“Anything between R1,000 and R1,500 appears to be a reasonable administration fee currently,” he said.
“And if a consumer feels aggrieved by a fee, then all the remedies in terms of the CPA would be available to them.”
The most practical course of action would be to lodge a complaint with the ombudsman for consumer goods and services.
But first, follow Sharon’s example and don’t meekly accept the lease agreement fee being charged. Push back and negotiate a sizeable reduction.
TimesLIVE
Support independent journalism by subscribing to the Sunday Times. Just R20 for the first month.
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