Moving On: Refusal to deliver items paid for in July 2017

The first time I bought items from Christa Ehlers, the franchisee of Moving On Boland, was in September 2016. It was a 3-piece wall unit and I had to make my own arrangements for collection in Paarl and delivery to Strand. She struck me as well organised and professional.

A month or two later, in order to increase the scope of her business, she had organised with an acquaintance of hers, Ronald, to deliver items purchased from Moving On Boland at a fee agreed upon by both parties. This made buying from her easy as she would assist in organising delivery.

During the months that followed, her business grew and with the added scope of her business, her professionalism decreased dramatically and her admin became very sloppy. She would not reserve items when asked to, or would reserve items and then just not confirm per e-mail or Whatsapp that she had set them aside.

In June and July 2017, I purchased quite a number of items from Christa Ehlers and paid thousands of rands for them. Among these were 3 framed Egyptian papyri which I bought at R750.00 each. However, when she removed these framed papyri from the wall of the client's home, she broke one of them and it had to be reframed. As one of her family members is in the framing business, she said that she would ask him to reframe it. In her possession, she also had a box with a number of smaller items to the value of R760.00 which I had paid for. She said that she would deliver this box with items personally together with the newly reframed papyrus.

Over the past 7 months, I have repeatedly contacted Christa Ehlers and she is always full of excuses as to where my property is. In January 2018, I involved the Moving On franchisor, Richard ********** and cell ***) in an attempt to get my property from his franchisee. This resulted in a partial reimbur*****t of R310.00 paid on 02 February 2018 for the items for which I paid R1,510.00. Despite contacting Richard over the past week per e-mail, all my e-mails have been ignored.

Be very careful when dealing with Moving On, and especially with Christa Ehlers of the Moving On Boland franchise. Under no circumstances pay in advance for any items, but only pay her upon collection yourself or make an arrangements for COD.