Welcome to 2008.. better late than never…

Last year BP broke all the rules in South Africa by becoming the first petrol company to officially accept debit cards for petrol purchases at its forecourts.  And now it appears that Shell is following suit, also accepting debit cards at its forecourts for fuel purchases.

Well done, it’s about damn time.

Foreigners might think that this is totally ridiculous, but the truth is that here in SA the Department of Mineral and Energy Affairs (DME) still enforces a number of horribly draconian and out-dated laws that have been in placesince the sactiona levied against the country in the 1960s as a result of Apartheid.

These don’t only pertain to the cost of a litre of petrol or diesel, but also prohibits the use of credit cards and, until recently, debit cards for fuel purchases.

The rules set out by the DME have been interpreted fairly literally but it is clear that a change in the regulations is overdue in order for the country to move with the times.

According to the DME, fuel may not be sold on credit, the purchase of fuel may not be incentivised by the retailer and the cost per litre of fuel may not be discounted, under any circumstances.

Therefore, allowing consumers to purchase fuel using any means other than cash, cheque or garage card is considered illegal if the regulations are interpreted strictly.

It could be argued that these markets all operate in a free market where the fuel prices are

not regulated by the state and a more modern set of rules regulate the fuel industry.

But, even in heavily regulated markets, Malaysia for example, debit cards are widely accepted for fuel payments.

With the increasing risk associated with accepting and handling vast amounts of cash, and rampant fraud around insecure, signature-based garage cards, forecourt owners are desperate to find alternative ways to accept payment for fuel.

Garage cards, which are more convenient than cash in most instances, serve as the “card payment alternative” for fuel in South Africa.

But, as mentioned before, they are easily stolen or lost and signatures can be forged and transactions are not always concluded online, leaving both the responsible retailer and the affected consumer with little chance to avoid the possibility of fraud.

In addition, the concept of garage cards adds no value to consumers at all. Garage cards are generally linked to some sort of credit card account, which in itself is an ironic contravention of the regulations set out by the DME that retailers may not sell fuel on credit.

They generally also carry an annual card fee and interest is changed on fuel transactions from day-one, in exactly the same way that credit card cash withdrawals are.

Similarly, the fees attracted by swiping a debit card can be much lower than swiping a garage card in some instances, and are definitely lower than the fees charged for drawing cash.

So, not only are garage cards essentially a duplicate product taking up space in a consumer’s wallet or purse, they also cost the user a lot more in fees.

All I can say is well done to BP and Shell for taking the first steps and embracing the 21st century.  Goodness knows, companies like Sasol, which quite prominently display huge signs to the effect of: “Debit cards are NOT accepted for fuel purchases”, can learn a lot from compnies like BP and Shell.

A solution to my Poo-geot problem!

I just had to share this.  My wife sent this picture to me via e-mail with the subject line: “The Solution to my Peugeot problems“… or should I say “Poo-geot problems…”?

DIE PEUGEOT DIE!!!!

‘Nuff said…

Bad merchandising – an open invitation for shoplifters

I went down to the local Builder’s Warehouse today to get some plumbing supplies and whle I was sifting through the buckets of pipes and joiners it occured to me that it woudl be so easy for dishonest people to leaverage the retailler’s poor merchandising abilities to steal stock.

In the plumbing department, there is a number of small items (like ring fasteners) that are not barrcoded and could easily be clipped onto other items (like rubber pipes) to make it look like they are part of the same product, when, in fact, you should really be paying for the ring fastener and pipe seperately.

It’s a small example, but I’ve found that many retaillers in South Africa are very poor in the merchandising department and it could potentially cost them a lot of money in wrongly-marked goods and/or plain old theivery.

Hands up: who’s ever found a pair of shoes at Edgars without a price on them and just taken the price off a cheaper pair of shoes, stuck it on the box and walked out with “a set of Diesel shoes for the price of a pair of Bronx“.

This is not a rant, but more of an observation really.  It does point to a certain level of laziness that permeates the local retail industry and some of the biggest culprits (whcih include Mr. Price, Builder’s Warehouse, Edgars, Woolworths) are also some of the biggest retail outlets belonging to JSE-listed holding companies.

But what do I know, I’m not in retail.

The Peugeot debacle continues…

So, after my last rant here, it would seem the the Peugeot debacle I described only gets worse.  Last week, my wife’s Peugeot 307 broke down, in our driveway thankfully – so it wasn’t too much of a walk home…

With warning lights flashing on the dashboard, an emergency “STOP” light illuminating red on the centre console and the car sputtering and stalling more than once in the driveway, it eventually had to be towed to Peugeot Northcliff, where it has been sitting for much of Friday, the whole weekend and today.

We eventually got a call from Peugeot with the likely story of “there’s nothing wrong with it” but a car that has “nothing wrong with it” doesn’t exactly flash warning lights and stall on a whim does it?

The dealership is holding onto it for another day just to be sure there’s nothing wrong, but I have to be brutally honest, I’m not convinced.

We’ll have to see what comes of this.  I have a feeling that the Motoring Ombudsman and me are going to have a little talk soon…