Ride and seek: Athlone ou pays R80k for car he never got in ‘scam deal’
An Athlone man said he was scammed out of R80 000 after he paid for a car to be delivered from Johannesburg but it never arrived, while the seller has since disappeared.
Tariq Raboodie says he made contact with Calvin Lukusa in May to buy a 2009 Honda CRV via Facebook but after agreeing to pay R80 000, all he got was a list of excuses.
He has since found out that Lukusa has been “selling” the same car for months to unsuspecting mense.
“I saw the post on Facebook in the middle of May and I looked at the pictures of the car which he had posted so it all looked legit,” Tariq says.
“The reason why I wanted to buy the car is that I wanted to hire it out for Bolt so I saw it was in good condition, plus Calvin said he worked for a dealership in Johannesburg.
“Although I did not see the car myself, the pictures looked good and the price was decent so I arranged to have the money via transfer to him.
“The car was supposed to come in June, but every time I got a different story about why it was not coming.
“First he told me that a family member had passed away so he had to go back to the DRC, and then there was an issue with how the driver who was supposed to bring the car to Cape Town.
“But now when I call, I just get no answer and the number is not on WhatsApp.”
Tariq says a chommie told him to search for Calvin on Facebook and that is when he saw a post similar to his situation.
“When I went online I got to a page called Scammer South Africa and there was a post by another guy with the exact same car that I bought but this one said Calvin worked at a dealership in Durban,” he adds.
“The post also said Calvin operated in Johannesburg, but it was the exact same car so I now know it was a scam.
“I saved up that money by working more hours and days but now it is all gone, this is not right.”
Tariq says he didn’t report the incident to the police because he was not confident they could help.
When the Daily Voice contacted Calvin, he said he was busy and was unable to take the call right then.
However, after calling back five times, the phone just rang before it went straight to voicemail, while he did not respond to queries about the car.
junior.bester@inl.co.za