Consumer Hacks with Wendy Knowler
Know your rights as a consumer. ECR’s Consumer Watchdog, Wendy Knowler, is giving us daily consumer tips to help empower you as a consumer. Here are the latest Consumer Hacks with Wendy Knowler.
Keep your cool, and your cash
Summer's on its way, and so is a lot more aircon use. Australia's consumer organisation CHOICE says your aircon should be set no more than 8°C cooler than it is outside. So on a 32°C day, set it to 24°C. According to CHOICE, every degree cooler than that adds about…
Declined at the till? Believe the machine, not your phone
You pay by card, your phone pings with a notification from your bank confirming the payment, but the cashier says it didn't go through and asks you to pay again. Who's right? Generally, the shop's card machine. Sometimes the bank's approval doesn't reach the machine because of a timeout or…
Had an op? Your first check-up should be free
Having an operation? Then ask this before you go under: when is my post-op check-up, and will I pay for it? According to the Council for Medical Schemes, a surgeon's fee for an operation includes normal after-care for one month. So follow-up consultations within that month shouldn't cost you anything…
Proof of address, not proof of spending
When a company asks for your bank statement as proof of address, all it needs is the top bit: your name and address. Yet a Cape Town man trying to buy a car from We Buy Cars was told his statement would only be accepted if at least seven transactions…
"Potential winner" doesn't mean you've won
A woman was excited to hear she was a potential winner in a competition after buying the qualifying products. But during verification, the company found she'd bought them through an online marketplace, and that disqualified her. She asked to be shown where the rules excluded that platform, and when she…
Selling your home? Tell your bank first
When you sell, your bond has to be cancelled. A buyer can't take ownership while your bank still has a claim over the property. But this is what catches people out. If you haven't given your bank three months' written notice that you intend to settle, it can charge you…
Where there's no will, there's a formula
Two thirds of us don't have a will. That’s what emerged from legal insurance company LAW FOR ALL’s recent survey of 1800 South Africans. And plenty of us are wrong about what happens next. Four in ten believe a spouse automatically inherits everything. Not so. Without a valid will, the…
"Duty-free" doesn't mean charge-free
A listener imported a car radio and got a R412 bill from the clearing agent. Car radios are duty-free, he says, so what's this for? Here's the thing. Duty-free refers to one line in the SARS tariff book. Car radios also sit in a category which attracts a 9% ad…
Never let anyone talk you out of claiming
A security company employee reverses into your stationary car in his response vehicle and admits fault. Surely the company or its insurers should pay for the repairs, not your own insurer? That instinct has cost a Durban pensioner six months and half the repair bill. She lodged a claim with…
Buying a car privately? Beware - you have no safety net
A woman bought a car from a private seller six months ago. It has given her serious trouble ever since, and the seller's answer is one word: voetstoots. He's right. Voetstoots means "as is", or “with all faults” and it means no recourse. The Consumer Protection Act protects you when…
Never say "yes, that's my debt"
A debt collector phones about an old account you'd forgotten. Before you say a word, work out when you last paid anything on it, or when you last admitted it was yours. If that's more than three years ago, and nobody ever served you with a summons, the debt has…
Check the name on the ticket. Every letter
Brett of Durbanville watched his son be refused boarding at check-in because his surname had been left off his ticket. The travel agency couldn't fix it there and then. Their only option was to buy a new ticket, which meant paying for four more legs at double the original cost…
That “diagnostic fee” has to be flagged first
Kyle of KZN handed in his drone for a quote. He heard nothing for over a week, then discovered it had already been shipped off to a third party for repair. When the invoice came and he said no thanks, he was told he owed them a diagnostic fee. Nobody…
The price on the shelf is the price you pay
Some shops add a fee when you pay by card, or refuse card payments under a certain amount, such as R50. The National Consumer Commission is warning traders, spaza shops in particular, that both are unlawful. Section 23(6) of the Consumer Protection Act says a supplier may not require you…
Too small to fight is not a thing
When a company owes you a few hundred rand and simply stops replying, most people give up. That's what they are banking on. A Cape Town doctor who lost R680 on an undelivered food order went to the National Consumer Commission and was told her amount was too small. It…
Airbags are not the expensive part
Carmakers leave side and curtain airbags out of their base models here because legally they don't have to, not because the airbags cost a fortune. Global NCAP's Alejandro Furas gave me the numbers. A frontal airbag costs a manufacturer roughly 50 US dollars. A side or curtain airbag costs 30…
That airline credit is on a clock
When an airline refunds you into a wallet or a voucher instead of your bank account, that money usually has an expiry date. With Lift it's 12 months. A Cape Town man lost R3 090 that way in July. What stung was that the airline emailed him a statement showing…
The visa nobody warns you about
A South African couple was refused check-in at Auckland airport a few months ago for their flight home. The reason: their layover in Perth on the return leg was longer than eight hours, so Australia's transit-without-visa concession for South African passport holders no longer applied. They'd transited Perth on the…
Which Starlet are you driving?
Toyota quietly replaced the Starlet in September 2025 with a version carrying four extra airbags: side and curtain ones. More than 20 000 of the older two-airbag cars had already been sold here, and a Global NCAP crash test saw it being awarded a shocking zero safety stars. The six-airbag…
Two minutes before you buy a car
Before you buy any new car, go to globalncap.org and check whether that South African model has been crash tested and what it scored. It's free and it takes two minutes. South Africa has no crash test programme of its own. Since 2017 the Automobile Association and Global NCAP have…