OUR NIGHTMARE!!!

We were looking for a rental home in MOreleta area and saw the perfect one advertised on privateproperty through ROWCOR PROPERTIES. They were quite keen to show us the place. We saw the house and decided to take it and signed the rental contract.

We paid the deposit of R16500 on Thursday evening 22/04/2019, which included ROWCOR PROPERTIES R1500 Admin fees.

We then contacted ELna van Wyk (Agent at ROWCOR) and asked whetehr it would be possible to move in earlier than the last day of the month as our then current Landlord (our previous address) wanted to paint the house we were renting at that stage. She informed us that the we would have to pay May Rent first before we could move in, but she confirmed that, should we pay May rental before the weekend, we would be able to move in on the weekend of 26, 27 and 28 April 2019.

This was fine with us, so we arranged to to collect the keys for Glossa Security on Friday, 26/04/2012 on the condition that we paid May rental by then.

on 25/05/2019 my husband received his salary and made payment of R15000 iro May rent immediately. Straight after payment I sent the Proof of Payment to Elna van Wyk as well as ROWCOR's admin email address. I also sent the Proof of Payment to Elna van WYk on WHatsapp and she confirmed receipt. Unfortunately we did not do an immediate payment from Capitec to Nedbank and the agency confirmed that the money would first have to reflect before we could get the keys.

Onn Friday 26/04/2012 we kept following up to find out if the funds were reflecting. It wasnt. We asked Rowcor to give us the benefit as they had all our details (ID, Statements, our deposit and admin fee, our landlord reference, etc). When they didnt wasnt to help we even sent them our bank statement showing that we paid of the R15000 rental. Feedback from them was non existentt.

Only on Saturday morning at 08:00 - 9:00 am the agent - Elna van Wyk informed us that we would receive the keys by 11:00am and would then be able to move into Glossa Security.

So we arranged for the rental of a truck and trailer to start the move. At about 10:30 am the truck was at our house and we started loading. But we could not get any answers out of Elna on whatsapp.

After 11:00 we start calling the agent to find out where the keys should be picked up or if we can go through to the house so they could meet us there with the keys. This was when we first heard that they had paid to the owner, butthe payment could not be cleared immediately from their Bank to the owners bank that Saturday was a public holiday, but the proof of payment was made to the owner. The owner refused to give us the key before the money reflected in their bank.

By this time we had already paid over R31500 to ROWCOR PROPERTIES and we had nothing to show for it, but a truckload of furniture wasiting to be moved.

There were coiuntless calls from our side again to the agency to figure out how and where to go as we needed to move out the house, plus clean the house and hand over the keys to the previous owner as they needed to paint their house out for the new attendants as agreed by everybody.

This put us in a very humiliating position. We have never been treated like this before. We have 2 boys in primary school - we couldnt very well stay on the street! Plus our furniture was on a truck and nowhere to go.

ALL OF THIS After we had already made our deposit of R16 500.00 and payment for May rent of R15 000.00 which is R31 500.00

We were forces to make contact to another agent and explained to them what is happening and asked them to help us with as rental home us, as we could not afford to sleep on the streets with our 2 boys and our furniture. At 14:00 the afternoon they (new agency) informed us that they could help us but that we needed to make a deposit which we did plus proof of payment was sent and accepted for another house which we are currently living in.

We are in massive financial circles due to the impact of how we were treated by the owner of Glossa Security and Rowcor properties. We feel that they did not comply to the TCF (treating customers fairly) and the agreement of the contract plus the agreement to move in earlier. Also they phoned us the Saterday morning (27/04/2019) that we will collect the keys by 11:00 – An expectation was created and a relief provided to us which was not the case?

ROWCOR PROPERTIES are now refusing to pay back any of our money. At first they said that the owner of Glossa Security is unreasonable and Elna van Wyk confirmed that she does not blame us for moving elsewhere. After the fact however, they said they would need to send our case to their Legal Department. We followed up for almost 3 weeks via email and we never got any replies! Two days ago on 20/05/2019 they confirmed in writing that they will not pay us back a cent of our money. That they had already paid over all the money to the owner of GLossa Security.

We believe they have to repay our money, especially our Deposit, because it is our money, not the agent, nor the owner of Glossa security.

The Agency informed me that this deposit was also paid to the owner. As far as we are concerned the Deposit should be paid into a seperate interest bearing account which is clearly not the case here..

We feel that the agency fits in with the financial crises of the owners and is not worried about our financial crises. In fact they are still advertising Glossa Security (along with 3 other agents) on Privateproperty.

I believe we should at least get our deposit back because we didn't move into the house of Glossa security. We never even saw the keys. We have nothing to show for the R31 500 we have lost to ROWCOR PROPERTIES. In fact we had to borrow money to pay Rent and Deposit at our new home and we are now struggling as a result. And ROWCOR couldnt care less.

is this fairly treated against us as a client?

This has been one big nightmare from beginning to end! I would advise anyone even considering to deal with ROWCOR PROPERTIES to stay very very very far away!!!!