Yes, petrol is now expensive enough, that it’s worth the risk to steal it from someone else.

On friday night, some bastard cut the fuel lines of all 4 cars parked outside our house. We are probably the only people on our street who don’t park behind an electric gate, because our driveway only has space for my parents cars on the property. My car lives on the council-owned part of our driveway.

I found out because my sister (who’d been visiting to use our Internet connection) broke down on the way home. With her car, this is perfectly normal, and to be expected. I went out to tow her home (she was only about a 500m away). I couldn’t find the tow hook on my car (my Golf has removable tow hooks, and somebody once broke into my car and stole the jack-set containing the removable hook), but I did notice that my car was trailing a line of petrol… odd… I went back to borrow my father’s car (with a tow-bar), and towed her home with that.

She was going to borrow my mother’s car (she usually does that when my mother is away, and her car breaks down), but noticed that there was a pool of petrol under it, too. Very odd…

At this point, I put 2 and 2 together, and found that all of the cars had cut lines. In the case of my father’s car, they hadn’t got a fuel line, but had god a brake sensor line instead. (Apparently VWs all have the fuel lines on the outside for safety, so they are the easy targets). On my car, they had only cut the fuel return line, so it could still drive, but would trail petrol.

The police were quick to come, but not very helpful: they said they’d never seen anything like it. They were thinking vandalism or neighbour issues. The questions were “Do you have a dog?” “Do you get on with your neighbours?” etc. You can tell what the normal problems in our area are :-)

The AA refused to come and help or tow the cars to my mechanic, saying the damage was an “insurable risk”. I thought most car problems were “insurable risks” and the reason one has AA membership is to sort things out afterwards? This refusal by them is unacceptable, what if it had happened when I was parked somewhere else? Would I have to get my car home by myself?

Fortunately my grandmother’s car was in storage in her garage, and I could rescue it. My sister stole her mother’s car, too. But I’ve now got a whole lot of paperwork to sort out, and 4 dead cars to get repaired… As I said, “Bastards!”

Photos here

Update:

• None of the cars have empty tanks, so if they were trying to steal petrol, they didn’t succeed.
• The damage came to R500 for the VWs, which isn’t bad at all. (Replacing the lines would be a mission, my mechanic repaired them). Excluding many hours of towing, phone calls, e-mail, and SMSs, though.

“Do you need cash in a hurry?”

At 15:14. I got another phone call from Plantinum. The first thing that I got from the woman was a contact number: 086 711 1660

I asked to speak to her boss, but she said he was out. Funny that. When I asked to leave a message, I was hung up on.

The phone call didn’t last for very long… :-(

Here’s a screenshot from the LG Chocolate website:

Anyone detect a Freudian slip?

There seems to be a shortage of single core AMD Athlon 64 processors at the moment. All the suppliers blame it on AMD-ATI merger….

I finally found one at Sahara, and so signed up with them. (Yes, I know they have a bad reputation with returns, but all the suppliers have those). The message from my sales consultant contained 11 disclaimers. You’d think one would suffice, or maybe even zero (my personal favourite), but no, 11… I really enjoy the variations in formatting :-)

Enjoy your day.

Any enquiries contact me

XXX YYYY

Sales Consultant

XXXX@cpt.sahara.co.za

021 551 5595 /Ext. XXX

Fax: 0866077368

PLEASE NOTE

This email and any files transmitted with it are confidential and intended solely for the use of the individual or entity to whom they are addressed. If you have received this email in error please notify the system manager. Please note that any views or opinions presented in this email are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of Sahara Distribution (Pty) Ltd. Finally, while Sahara Distribution attempts to ensure that all email is virus-free, Sahara Distribution accepts no liability for any damage caused by any virus transmitted by this email.

Sahara Distribution (PTY) Ltd Private Bag X180, Halfway House, 1685, South Africa

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Sahara Distribution (PTY) Ltd Private Bag X180, Halfway House, 1685, South Africa

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I’ve heard back from my contact at Vodacom. (cough smitty cough):

I have looked at this clients complained and have established the following: We have in the passed received similar complained from this company (Platinum) Firstly they are not a WASP service so they don’t need to comply as stated. They are a company that do sales and use random cell phone ranges prefixes 082 445 xxxx to SMS clients or call randomly. If the client wants to stop them from contacting him, he needs to call then and advise them accordingly.

Platinum 0219441600

Regards

Sounds like they are from Cape Town, (but north of the borewors curtain).

So, I phoned them… Naturally, I ended up at a voicemailbox (for extension 1649), so I asked to be called back. Lets see…

If I don’t hear from them, next stop is the Ombudsman for financial services.