Risking a reputation over R100

Just before Christmas last year, my husband and I bought a new Suzuki and dashed off to the coast for our summer break with the temporary registration number. Over the lovely long break, the registration expired. As we knew it would, so we had arranged with our salesperson to send us the photos of the registration.

Two reminders later and no response, we set off back to Joburg. At Colesberg the cops stopped and fined us. R100. The real pain was watching the cars flood past us for forty minutes while we waited to be processed (we were up at 4:30 am to avoid driving into Joburg during peak hour traffic).

Suzuki Bryanston gave us the registration plates and sympathetically said we should just send the fine and they will pay. In January.

Having reminded them in February, March and April (I will leave out the tedious details, but increasingly annoyed) I called head office in May. The CEO could not be found – the phone went dead on me while waiting. Which was better than the next two calls when my call was killed. The fourth time it was answered and I was transferred to a hapless technical guy who listened sympathetically and said he will find someone to deal with the issue.

I am still waiting.

I do not care much about cars; as far as I’m concerned, they’re how one gets from A to B. But I am on record as having an unpaid fine because Suzuki keeps on ignoring me. So every time I travel from A to B, I wonder if the cops will stop me, and I think about the range of broken promises.

For R100.