NO ‘PRIDE’ AT ALL!

BEWARE!! I called Motor Pride in Durban and spoke to the owners son, Wase-m, to discuss details of a Porsche 911 they had for sale. As I am based in Sandton and this was an expensive car, I needed lots of accurate, detailed answers to my questions, in order to understand whether this was the car for me. I am experienced within the motor trade, having owned ancillary motor trade businesses, as well as having owned several Porsche cars. I know what questions to ask! The son described the car as 10/10 (I actually wrote down all his answers to my questions on a print out of the car ad). I then received an unsolicited call from his father, Faiz-l, one of the owners, who proceeded to persuade me that they don’t just sell cars, they develop relationships with clients!!! He confirmed the 10/10 rating on all my main points. The owner then offered to pay for my flight to Durban to view the car and if it was not right, would also cover my return flight. On the basis of their description, I agreed and sent him a R100k security deposit. Rather than them booking the flight for me, I was told I needed to organise it myself and they would refund (I should have picked up on that early flag). When I arrived at their showroom, the car was nothing like the 10/10 they described. There were 5 separate issues that completely contradicted their description of the car. I was very unhappy about this, as it was a waste of a full day. I said I wasn’t prepared to complete the purchase and would need to consult some contacts in the motor trade to find out the cost of repairs. As the flight there only cost R580, and they reassured me that it would be very easy to just turn up at the airport and secure another cheap flight back to Jo’burg, I offered (out the goodness of my heart) to cover the cost of my return flight. When I arrived at the airport, I found out that there were no cheap flights available and was being quoted between R4-5k! I rushed around all the airlines and the cheapest I could get was R3,800. I also had to wait 5 hours at the airport for this flight and only just managed to get the last train back from OR Tambo. I was exhausted by the time I got home at 9.30pm. The following day, I did consult my auto contacts, who advised that the cost of repairs was going to be over R100k and that I should walk away. I contacted the owner with this info (as well as the awful experience at the airport and the return flight cost) and he would not revise the price to reflect those costs. I then asked him to honour his offer of covering the return flight costs, given that I had been lured to Motor Pride on false information. The only reply I received was for my bank details, nothing else. What happened to developing long term relationships with clients? The next thing I noticed was the R100k deposit refund, but not the return flight costs! I recontacted Faiz-l to reimburse the return flight costs but he has ignored me. There you are, a car sales operation that lured me all the way to Durban with a false description and no honour to make good on their promise of covering the travelling expenses. DO NOT DEAL WITH THEM.