By Tony Ngare
Kenya: Every couple of years, we find ourselves having to buy a new car, either to upgrade or for practical reasons. If you are not importing, or walking into the showroom and ‘tearing the papers off’, or striking a deal at the weekly car bazaar, buying a used car from the car yards becomes the next available option.
Before the advent of online marketing, having a car yard at a busy road was all a car dealer needed to guarantee tidy profits. But nowadays, car dealers, besides dealing with online marketing, have to deal with a few bad elements that are soiling their generally good name.
A close associate of mine, Edwin, wanted to sell off his Toyota Kluger, buy a slightly smaller car, and use the extra funds to put the finishing touches on his house in Ngong’.
After trying to sell the car ‘on the go’, that is while still using it, proved a Herculean task, he decided to have it displayed at one of the many car yards in the city. A couple of days later, on enquiring whether there had been enquiries about his car, the salesmen assured him that it had attracted a great deal of interest from buyers since it arrived in the yard. (I would be surprised if they did not say that to all the other car owners whose cars were gathering dust at the yard.)
One day, Edwin decided to make an impromptu visit to the car yard. His car was not there; he was informed that a prospective buyer had taken it on a test drive. After waiting for 45 minutes, my friend figured that perhaps the car dealer did not want him to meet with the prospective buyer face to face in case they struck a deal ‘out of court’. So he went away, but asked to be kept abreast of the happenings.
Two days later, he had not heard from the car dealer, so he phoned and was told that the buyer was still putting his money together.
A week later, after not hearing anything from the dealer, Edwin made another impromptu visit. Yet again, he was informed that his timing was magical because his car was out with yet another prospective buyer. He got increasingly confident that he could sell his car in a couple of days, and even started making arrangements with the hardware store from which he usually purchased his building items.
Then, after another week of waiting and hearing nothing, he began to worry that his seemingly perfect plan may not come to fruition. But, as it turned out, this was to be the least of his worries.
One Saturday morning, Edwin came across his car on Thika Road. A man was driving it, with a woman and children on board. There was no way; it could have been on a road test.
He immediately called the car dealer, and was informed that his car was on yet another road test. On enquiring where exactly it was, the car dealer mumbled that it was in Lang’ata, with a client.
Edwin smelt a rat and stopped the man driving his car. The man was shocked that somebody else was claiming the car he had bought barely two weeks earlier.
It turned out that the car dealer had received the money from the buyer, but did not remit the same to the seller. The matter has been reported to the police, and has become what people on Facebook describe using the phrase ‘it’s complicated’.
This is not to say that all car yards are run by crooks, it simply highlights the need to exercise caution.
