'Admin error' lands woman in hospital after car mistakenly repossessed

Imagine having your car repossessed because of an 'administrative issue'.

Especially if you bought the vehicle to earn a living as an e-hailing driver.

Wendy Knowler followed up on the case of Melita, who said the car she bought in 2019 to use on the Bolt platform was taken on 16 January by a Sheriff of the Court carrying a court order obtained by Standard Bank.

It's a shocking case says the consumer journo, not only because the client was up to date with her repayments, but because her car is actually financed by Nedbank MFC and NOT Standard Bank.

“The name and ID on the court order are not mine, but the car details are correct,” Melita told Knowler.

When she tried to point this out to the Sheriff, Melita relates, his response was that he'd done his job and she needed to talk to her bank.

At the end of an exhausting process, Melita did finally get her car back, and in good order.

However, the trauma took its toll on her.

Standard Bank made its client a first “gesture” offer of R10,000, but she pointed out that she'd lost far more than that due to THEIR error.

Melita wanted to be reimbursed for her lost Bolt earnings, which she estimated at R28,000.

She also said she'd been hospitalised due to the stress caused by this situation, but the bank said her medical aid had covered that.

To cover the cost of alternative transport she asked for R2,000, and as 'a sorry' another R10,000 on top of that.

In the end, Melita accepted a final offer of just over R23,000.

"Unfortunately, in this country the legal system does not allow for pain and suffering recompense, but I think in this case a top-up would have been nice. I do think I would also have expected something which recognised how badly their mistake had affected me."

"The injustice of it I think would have put me into hospital."

Wendy Knowler, Consumer Journalist

Knowler does add that MFC offered to drop this client's interest rate, which did indicate some empathy on their part.

For more detail, listen to the interview audio at the top of the article