Engen garage disappoints us

On the 8 November 2019, my family including my grandparents were going on a road trip towards Modimolle - formerly Nylstroom, in Limpopo province, South Africa.

Our family trust Engen and always look for an Engen garage to stop at when traveling. We stopped at about 2 pm on Friday at the North Facing N1 Kraanskop Engen garage.

The petrol station was bustling - lots of people were around as it was a Friday and I assume peak hours.

My dad after filling up with over R1000 diesel went to park our car by the Wimpy so that we could use the toilets.

My grandpa is over the age of 90 and needed help so we took him and left my 85-year-old granny in the car alone as she did not need the toilet.

Now in my knowledge, when you stop at a garage you should feel safe especially when there are people around and during broad daylight.

It all happened at the speed of lighting when a man came up to our car, wrenched open the door only to rip my gran's handbag out her lap. A car passed and he jumped in it and left the garage.

My parents were gone for less than 5 minutes and upon returning they found my gran in utter shock. No one came to her help.

We then spoke to the manager who said that the CCTV cameras were not working (what a surprise) in that area and therefore we couldn't see any footage. The manager then went on to say that he would follow up with us and see what else he could do as he took our number.

Approximately 2 weeks later we have heard absolutely nothing.

Our family will now never stop at this particular garage in Kraanskop as clearly its a hotspot and not safe at all. We feel that yes these things happen but the least they could have done was to communicate that they are sorry and will be addressing the camera situation so that it does not happen again. Unfortunately, it seems that was too much to ask for.

It is sad to say that we will no longer feel the way we used to about Engen.

I urge you to be wary when stopping even during the day at these garages - you just aren't safe.

I hope my experience helps someone else as we were lucky, it could have been much worse.