Frustration and anger for ‘R699’ car owners

THERE is some serious unhappiness among motorists who took advantage of the too-good-to-be-true ‘Drive a new car for R699 a month’ deal, offered by the Satinsky group of companies which owns Drive Car Sales.

Payments have stopped or been reduced, resulting in many now being out of pocket.

The way it works is as follows: the customer signs two deals – one with a bank to get a 100 percent loan, and one with Hong Kong-based company Blue Lakes.

Satinsky is also the management agent for Blue Lakes Trading and Promotions, and operates its help desk in the country.

Blue Lakes would then pay the customer to advertise on his or her car, and pay them a sum of money each month.

In effect, the car would become a moving billboard.

There were obviously various terms and conditions.

There were two deal options. The first was that if a car was sold from the unique code on the car’s window, they would get R3000.

The second would be that owners would get paid per kilometre driven.

However, according to numerous reports on the internet, it’s all gone ‘pear shaped’ with the car owners now not getting their promised payments, or having their contracts changed without their consent, or only getting a portion of the promised amount.

And no word coming forth on whether or not they may ever see any of it in the future.

The problem is that they don’t seem to be able to get answers.

Customers have complained to the help desk, which refers them back to Satinsky which claims it is not responsible for any payments to clients, and is only a managing agent.

So, for now, these car owners are up the creek without a paddle.

It’s long and complicated. Watch this space.