Throwback Thursday – May 19, 2006
Crime was bad and con men were out in full force
It was a week of hell for motorists, ten years ago, when two motorists were hijacked, two vehicles were stolen and thieves attempted to steal a further two cars.
Brian Cranko had been without power when the Courier interviewed him in 2006. Mr Cranko’s mother passed away in 1999, the house was still on her estate which was never settled. As a result Mr Cranko was expected to pay service charges as he stayed in the house. When the municipality finally cut his lights, he was R 38 000 in arrears for his service charges. However, it was unclear who wold have to pay for the service charges as the house still remained on his late mothers name. Mr Cranko approached numerous political parties in a bid to help resolve his situation, however, now of them came to his rescue. Mr Cranko believed there was a conspiracy going on.
The sad part of this tale is that the situation is exactly the same 10 years on. Nothing has changed to this day.
There were also conmen on the prowl. One was a manure salesman who tried to charge a lady R2 800 for manure she didn’t order.
The other conman claimed to work for Pick ‘n Pay and tried to con Dundee Pre-Primary. He phoned the school asking for their bank details, saying that Pick ‘n Pay wanted to donate R 6 000 to them. Minutes later they received a fax saying that R16 000 had been deposited into their account. The conman then told the school that he had made a mistake and asked them to transfer the extra R10 000 to Moitswadi Ditabo Secondary School. Smelling a rat, the school approached their bank and found out that they almost were victims of a scam.
The conman could not be traced though.
Dundee Pre-Primary also made news when offenders from Glencoe Correctional Services cleaned up the school.
Sentraal continued their winning ways in the sports news and Pop-In Supermarkets were gearing up for their huge soccer tournament.
