Where is the responsibility?

On the 25th April 2018 I stopped by Virgin Active (Virgin) Sandton CBD (corner Alice Lane and West Street) for my weekly workout. I arrived at 16:51 and came out roughly an hour and a half later around 18:50. I had parked my vehicle at B3, conveniently next to CCTV camera. This parking is owned by Sandton City (essentially Liberty and a company called Pareto Ltd) and it is managed by Fidelity. When I arrived at my vehicle, I found two security guards by my vehicle, both dressed in Fidelity uniform. My front passenger door was completely ajar. To my shock, I asked what happened and one man informed me that they had both just started their shift and they had no idea what happened. (Another man backed this story because apparently no guards are on shift before 7pm- members of this gym can please confirm this statement because I must be oblivious to this fact every time I drive into the gym parking lot). I asked if there are cameras as I was scanning the parking lot and noticed a CCTV camera to the LEFT of my vehicle, mounted on the wall. I figured that the simplest way to resolve this matter was to see the footage to understand what had transpired. I was instructed, by one of the guards that I need to drive to Sandton city, specifically entrance no. 12, to see the footage. I went back into Virgin to confirm what I had been told and they suggested that I just ask the guard to take me to the control room. An employee accompanied me outside and then the security guard insisted that he would take me to entrance 12 himself. The employee returned back to the gym under the assumption that I was in good hands. As soon as he left, the security guard requested something absurd, asking that "I should go and stand next to my vehicle so that the people in the control room could replay the footage to see if anything had happened". Naturally, I questioned the sensibility of this request and decided to call Sandton City myself on the number listed on Google ********** 000. I explained what had happened and asked to speak to security. They informed me that the head of security would come and attend to the matter in person. In the meantime, the guard told me that the control room said nothing happened. When I contested this he got angry and told me to go home, saying "what more do you want". I informed him that the way this matter was being dealt with left me no choice but to contact the police and his response was "call them, what are they going to do?". In my mind, if nothing happened- it does not explain how my car door was left ajar? If I had left my car door ajar, surely they would have simply told me this, but this was not the answer I received upon my return to my vehicle after coming out of the gym. That is a barely-there response to how this situation arose. Eventually the head of security arrived and by this time my brother had arrived to help resolve this situation. The head was very quick to ask or rather assume that I was the one at fault. I got several questions like "did you not leave your door or car window open?", "was your lock tampered with while you were in virgin active?”. He even went as far as to ask if someone else had my spare key- because it was more probable that someone with my spare key came to the gym and then left my car door open than it was to simply check the CCTV footage and squash the matter immediately. Another man, in military uniform, joined to bombard me with more accusations of this "potentially" being my fault. We pleaded to see the footage for more than an hour to no avail. Despite my not finding anything missing at the time, the head commented that we would not be able to open a case at the police station BECAUSE there was nothing missing. He seemed surprisingly sure that this was the case- if it aided his views then showing the footage would have been the obvious solution? My brother and I were appalled and physically tired from the way this was handled and the only thing we were “offered” in terms of assistance was a crumpled document that looked far from official-with only half of the heading visible. The head promised to follow this up and we never heard from him again. Luckily, before we left, we asked the head to sign the statement and instructed that we would investigate this further. He suggested we follow up with Sandton City Management and gave us the number because that was supposedly where we would get independent help.

Fast forward to 7th May

I called the number (Sandton City Management) given to us by the head of security (Fidelity). To my surprise it was the exact same number I saved to my phone from Google on the day of the incident. I spoke to someone by the name of Paul. I relayed what happened at Virgin and I specifically informed him that I wanted to speak to someone independent of Fidelity. Paul then asked if I had spoken to the Head of Operations, a man by the name of Gerrit. I rep**** that I had dealt with someone else on the day. He then gave me Gerrit's cellphone number and assured me that this matter would be resolved and attended to. I receive a call from Gerrit later the same day and he told me the following: He looked at the surveillance report, which conveniently indicated that nothing happened. He also checked the scanner for jamming devices on that day and no activity was detected. This was the extent of his investigation. He then said "your vehicle was out of view, it was behind the camera". This bewildered me. I questioned how he came to this conclusion because my vehicle was clearly visible (and to the right of the camera), hence why I saw it in the first place. The parking bay is still there and any individual can testify to the complete falsehood of this response. The only thing behind the camera is the wall, which it is mounted on. At this point the answers that I have received, which defy all logic, confirms to me that this was a blatant lie. I asked Gerrit if he actually saw the footage, because that would trump all hearsay. He responded that he has looked at the surveillance report (from who and where- I have no idea) along with my statement and he agreed that nothing happened. So at this point, I had heard what the people in the control room supposedly said (from a conversation over the phone with a Fidelity security guard), only to hear a similar response from an entire Head of Operations about what the surveillance report said. I then questioned him about the genuine concern of public safety because the fact that they insisted that nothing happened and had dismally failed to prove that nothing happened creates a lot of uncer*****y about the general safety of Sandton City properties. I say this because a month before this incident, tracker called to notify me that someone had tried to jam my vehicle, at Sandton City shopping centre. Something is very wrong with the ease at which serious issues are dismissed and the frequency of security issues that occur under sandton city’s watch. Gerrit responded to my concerns about safety by saying they do not have the budget for proper camera's and that they have blind spots. Again, a response that doesn’t answer anything relevant to my case and I genuinely struggle to understand how they can afford scanners but not proper camera's. To cement his conclusion, he notably added that two different companies had been appointed to manage the surveillance and security by Sandton to maintain a level of "independence". He would not disclose who this other mysterious company was. So I asked who the head of security I dealt with on the night of the incident worked for. He did not know this, even though he had supposedly just looked at my statement which clearly had the signature of the head of security. After pointing this out to him, he confirmed that it was one of his managers, from Fidelity. Then I proceed to ask him who he worked for, to which he responded, "Fidelity". So there are supposedly two separate companies working in surveillance and security and on the night of the incident, I dealt with 3 Fidelity personnel and not one representative from the surveillance company was present. I then called the call centre (Sandton City Management) and specifically asked to speak to someone independent of Fidelity. I ended up being directed to the Head of Ops, who also happened to work for Fidelity. All this time, Fidelity has been the sole point of communication, yet I would imagine that there is supposed to be an independent party in the picture. Something here does not add up.

Following these incidents and the way in which they were handled, furthermore the blatant lack of effort in trying to investigate what happened that night highlights so many terrifying things as a customer and individual. The very people who are supposed to protect us have an overwhelming power that allows them to easily exploit customers and tenants. The truth is- you need to be vigilant when going to buy groceries or even going to the gym, which itself is an equally a sad and scary thought and that next time it might happen to you. Sandton city shopping centre, Sandton City properties are not safe as long as incidents like these are stifled and remain unresolved. The fact that nothing is being done about it speaks to the power that companies like Fidelity have or the lack of responsibility that shareholders of Sandton City has. Yes, shareholders, because if this is how an interaction through Sandton City Management went, you should really be questioning who is responsible for the management of sandton city- where is JHI retail?