There have always been complaints about underhand goings-on in the world of car dealerships. Most of the shady transactions, we are told, have been working to the detriment of consumers and potential consumers seeking to purchase motor vehicles.
A car may no longer be a status symbol in Guyana but upwardly mobile people, particularly the young, ambitious, reasonably well-educated Guyanese, see a car as a social extension of themselves, though that is not to say that these days, particularly given the fact that housing location changes have put considerable distances between home and work, a car has not become a necessity for many families.
The demand for cars has, for several years now, created an investment opportunity for established businessmen and women as much as for hustlers. The industry ranges from prominent dealerships with shop fronts and show windows to backroom operators who confine themselves to a few clients at a time looking to get someone else to go through the paperwork and the procedures involved in importing a car from Japan.
Local commercial banks too have not been slow in cashing in on the demand for cars. Commercial bank advertising usually includes a high percentage of lending deals associated with vehicle acquisition.
As this newspaper has learnt from the Consumer Affairs Division of the Ministry of Tourism, there is a dark side to the business of car dealerships. There are operators whose enterprises are driven by an unchanging pattern of unscrupulous practices designed entirely to rip off potential customers so preoccupied with chasing their dream of owning a car that they are oblivious to the fact that they are being gouged before their very eyes.
This newspaper learnt that one of the scams used by some dealers is to offer customers fabulous hire purchase deals that entice them into signing what are literally blank contracts. Once the contracts are signed and the cars are delivered the customer then discovers that the real contract states a price for the car that could be almost double the verbally agreed price. The contract, of course, bears the buyer’s signature which had been affixed prior to the numbers being put in.
Shockingly, the Consumer Affairs officials told us that trapped as they are, some of the victims actually go along with the crooked arrangement, spending much more than they had actually budgeted on the vehicle. In other cases the victims appeal to the Division though we are told that it is awfully tough to secure restitution since the dealers are quick to trot out what appears to be perfectly valid contracts.
We are told that there are various other scams associated with buying cars in Guyana like warranties that cover very little in terms of repairs, cars that are imported as scrap (the duty on scrap is apparently considerably less) then assembled in workshops here in Guyana and sold as though they were imported as complete car in the first place. In some cases, vehicles, we are told, are ‘doctored,’ that is to say, diminished in the extent of service that they will provide through the careful replacement of critical parts. It all amounts to a ruthless regimen of exploitation that blackens the trade.
As far as we are told too, public servant-type consumers who are believed not to know the ropes and who are able—apparently without a great deal of trouble—to secure commercial bank loans, are the ideal targets for unscrupulous car dealers. These, ironically, are the people who can least afford to be ripped off.
This newspaper understands that in the period ahead, the Consumer Affairs Division will be stepping up its public information efforts to better sensitize consumers to the dangers associated with purchasing cars in Guyana. We are told of a case where one local dealer has acquired such levels of notoriety that one commercial bank has now decided not to give loans to potential car buyers doing business with that particular dealer. Steps like those can help but removing the spectre of the rip off car dealer might well require changes in the law and, perhaps more importantly, a far higher level of alertness on the part of the buyer. We are told that the best approach is to engage the car dealer with someone who understands the business much better than you do.
It is, of course, no secret that state agencies responsible for consumer protection in Guyana are usually ill-equipped, under-staffed and lacking in the requisites to pursue their mandate effectively. Indeed, one has to wonder whether Consumer Affairs is ideally placed inside the Tourism Ministry or whether it ought not to be one of those semi-autonomous state with powers to match its responsibilities.
