From April 1 you’ll be able to walk into a car or motorcycle dealership and play God, watching as salesmen visibly wither under the oppressive glare of the new Consumer Protection Act.
With the prospect of paying fines up to R1 million or ten percent of their turnover if found guilty of violating your consumer rights, motor companies will literally fall at your feet to deliver excellent customer service.
Well, at least that’s the rather larger-than-life expectation created. What’s true is that this is important legislation and the consumer has been handed a big stick with which to keep suppliers in check.
Before this act there were several pieces of consumer legislation but they were all fragmented in various sub-clauses. Now it’s all been collated into a single document in language that you and I can (more or less) understand without getting an expensive lawyer to decipher it. Its full name is the Consumer Protection Act 68 of 2008 and if you wish to pore through all 94 pages you can download it from the following website link: www.info.gov.za/view/DownloadFileAction?id=99961
There are a few important new laws that you should be aware of and which really will make a difference in motorists’ lives:
Direct marketing will no longer be allowed, so you won’t be harassed by emails, phone calls or sms messages advertising “great new deals you’d be crazy not to take advantage of”.
Product bundling will be banned, so you won’t be forced to buy unwanted accessories just because a dealer wants to get rid of slow-moving stock.
Buyer-seller contracts have to be in plain and understandable language, without all the Latin and legal-speak.
The fact that grey or parallel imports aren’t supported by the official importer/distributor must now be clearly communicated by signage on the shop floor. It will be much like putting a “smoking is hazardous” sticker on a cigarette pack.
Right of return. This part of the act has caused most of the excitement, but it doesn’t necessarily mean people will have a licence to willy-nilly return vehicles or parts after a sudden attack of buyer’s remorse. There are clear cut rules governing what you can return:
The vehicle, part, or accessory can be returned due to material defect, failure or hazard - as long as you haven’t altered the product yourself.
If you bought a product due to direct marketing (in other words a transaction that wasn’t initiated by you), there is a cool-off period of five business days in which you can return it.
If you feel you didn’t have enough time to examine the product there’s a ten-day return period. However, in the latter two cases you will have to pay the cost of restocking the product.
Manufacturers will now be forced to notify customers of a recall. But recall doesn’t mean that a whole car has to be replaced because of, for instance, a faulty washer.
A big change is that suppliers will be liable for damage caused by unsafe or defective vehicles or parts whether or not the harm resulted from their negligence. Most people can’t afford to sue large businesses, but with the CPA you no longer have to prove negligence on the part of the supplier. Rather, the shoe’s now on the other foot: where a consumer claims for damages, the producer, importer, distributor or retailer will have to prove that they aren’t responsible for the resulting damages.
As before, you will have redress to higher authorities if you have a complaint that hasn’t been resolved to your satisfaction by the motor company, except that some of those authorities now have a lot more authority.
The Motor Industry Ombudsman is given more teeth by the CPA, and in future parties will be legally bound to abide by his rulings (at the moment this is voluntary), and will apply to any motor firm or supplier - big or small - not just the major motor companies currently contracted to the Ombudsman.
This all gives motor dealers much more incentive to resolve customer complaints quickly, rather than let them escalate to the Ombudsman or other dispute-resolving bodies such as the National Consumer Commission or Consumer Tribunal.
Brandon Cohen, Compliance Manager for Associated Motor Holdings, offers a good summary of the implications of the CPA: “If they’re selling junk or their customer service is bad, companies are going to get hurt, but companies that follow sound business principles and standards, offer quality products and maintain good customer relations should welcome the new legislation”. -Star Motoring.