Motorists who saw the initiative as a handy way to own your own car, are left with hefty monthly installments after a business agreement between the companies responsible for the initiative went sour.
Many people saw the “Drive a new Car” initiative as a way to afford a car you would not otherwise be able to.
The business plan was simple: You could choose to either ‘Earn while you Drive’ where you get paid per kilometre that you drive or ‘Earn while you Own’ where you received a fixed amount per month.
All you had to do in return was have a sticker on your back window with a unique code and contact details to lure in more clients.
The initiative was cooked up by a company called Satinsky Group from Pretoria together with Hong Kong based Blue Lakes Trading and Promotions.
Miemie Smit, who owned a car on the Earn while you Own module, said that she received an amount of R570 per month.
“For us it was a bonus. You had to pay the car installment yourself anyway. We never depended on the money we got to pay the car.”
She says that the only thing that has changed is that she got to pull of the sticker.
“Looking in your rear-view mirror looks completely different all of a sudden.”
Ria Dreyer, owned a car on the Earn as you Drive module.
She says that, lucky for her, she only has a couple of months left before her car is completely paid off.
She earned anything between R950 to R1 000 per month depending on the kilometres she travelled.
“They told us that there is nothing we can do legally, because we have a contract with the bank for the car, not with any of the other companies.”
Others weren’t so fortunate. Horror stories of people who bought a car on this principle just months ago were told. They are now responsible for the whole installment without any reimbursement.
The black and white of it is: if there was no promise of getting an amount of money back, which you could use to pay off your fixed monthly installment, many people would not have bought these cars.
Satinsky got to sell a lot of cars, there is rumored to be as much as 17 000 of them on the road, and now does not have any contractual responsibility towards its clients.
Leaving them to face a hefty installment in a time when a threatening recession is looming on the horizon.
