SolGas Gonubie

Dishonest owner

Around April 2017, my father and I were looking to purchase solar energy for our household as we had a few problems with BCM incorrectly accounting our electricity account, we ended up purchasing x2 325w solar panels, a 5KVA inverter and x2 banks of batteries to start off with, we were told that the panels would need to be ordered from cape town and would cost us R3500 per panel. We went ahead with all of this and paid for everything, it then took a few weeks for us to receive all of the purchased items and when picking up all the items the wrong inverter was given to us as the owner tried to deal us in, anyways we didn't think too much about that further as he could have made a mistake. A few days later after I had installed everything we had problems with the banks of batteries that we had received as every single battery was basically dead, not even lasting a whole hour where the should have lasted at least 24 hours with the load we were using. I took the batteries back multiple times saying that they are damaged and the owner kept changing them and telling my that there is nothing wrong with the batteries as he said that he has tested them with a load(putting a load on a battery is NOT how you test them ). A few days after that the owner contacted my father and spoke to him about opening a new division(security) in the business and get me to work in that division, my father agreed and had a few meetings with him and in the discussion I was told that I would earn a salary. After a few weeks my father and I decided to order another 325w solar panel so we again paid R3500 for the panel and having to wait another few weeks the panel arrived in my bosses car, strange as it would of had to arrive directly to the business from what was mentioned from him, I did not see him bring the panel in but when I walked past the other section in the building I saw him sitting and pulling the Ellies wrapper off the panel, I then got very suspicious and told my father, my father then went to Ellies directly and found the panels priced at R2500, a whole grand cheaper than what my boss charged us, we ended up leaving Ellies with a 4th panel. After a few more weeks having trouble with the batteries I then took one of the batteries from what was still in the store and spoke to one of the solar installers that came in and he tested the cell's of the batteries in front of my boss and I overheard that the batteries were damaged. We were then asked to bring all the batteries we had at home and have them replaced with different batteries. The system has now been working correctly as the new batteries are fine, not new as in brand new but new replaced second hand batteries, this was about 5 months down the line from April where this all started. After 6 months of working there doing a lot of work and being told that I was apparently 'playing' at work just because the other staff were friendly people and would laugh at small things, I mean who doesn't have a little bit of 'fun' at work. I was only getting about R200 a week and that ONLY covered the petrol for my very heavy Yamaha virago motorbike, I stay quite far from where the business is situated and I never had any money to spend on myself. After contributing a lot to the business, I setup a server for storage, point of sale, invoicing system and various other reasons to make things easier as the owner was doing everything on paper. Hell, I even built a website with eCommerce for the business and we all know how much it costs for a website to be built! I also did all the designing of the flyers and pamphlets and that too costs quite a bit. I also setup a 'demo' CCTV system for my customers so I could show them the features and everything but after doing my install I was off sick, my boss asked my supplier to change the password on the system that I couldn't login and do a thing, now how was I suppose to show my customers anything on a system that I cannot access? I then figured out the password a few days later. After about a week later I was then accused of hiding things as the server was running linux and the owner did not know how to use it, like he would need to do anything in the backend of the server anyways, the man cannot even use a windows machine nor a cellphone! I then decided I have worked too hard to get nothing and the feeling of being unwelcome and unappreciated in the business, I decided to pack up and fetch my server that still belonged to me, at the time I went to fetch the machine the boss was out, About an hour later I get a phone call, it was my boss, swearing and carrying on at me and threatening to take me to the police as I have removed property from the business (that belonged to ME), he said I had one hour to get the server back to the business. I the just decided to take the server back as I didn't want to make things worse not that it has already. Upon taking the server back he told me that they were going to copy the data off the server(ALL my work that I did) and then It would get dropped off at my house. I waited the next day and the server did not arrive. After a few days again, one of the staff sent me a message offering to purchase the server from me, I agreed and said they could take it for R1000, I still have not got my money and the staff member left the business with my machine. I went in with my father to speak with the owner to sort out business and try receive my machine, I was told that he doesn't even know where it was and didn't know that the other staff member left with the machine and it was his responsibility to drop the machine off at my house the day after threatening me, I have contacted the other staff member and he said I could come and fetch the machine from him when I go that side of town again(we will see how that goes). To this day (05/11/2017) we have still not received our second bank of batteries that we have paid for.