Not all ‘car dealers’ value customer loyalty

that these car dealers never existed, being conmen who used a bank account in a false name to collect money and then vanishing into the thin air they came from.
Part of the problem is with Zimbabweans who appear to believe that if something is on the Internet it must be genuine. Regrettably this is not so. Fraudsters love the web since anyone can set up a web page, can call himself what he likes and then can offer dishonest bargains.
The used car trade seems to attract more than its fair share of such people. All those jokes about used car dealers are based on fact, and the pool of honest men and women buying and selling used cars, and there are many such, have their lives made a misery by the hangers on the trade attracts.
There are, in any case, many good reasons why the ordinary person should be wary of buying a used car over the web. The most obvious dangers are seen in buying from a person who either does not exist or is so bad a business person that they cannot perform the service they are paid for. The money just vanishes.
But there are other dangers.
Quite a few cars are damaged in transit. Sometimes this is just a shallow dent that does not break the paint and can perhaps be lived with. But there is worse damage reported.
Secondly there is no guarantee the car being bought is in good condition mechanically. While the Japanese have to keep their cars properly maintained for five years and then dump them, so almost all these Japanese grey cars are in reasonable shape when dumped, that does not mean they are still working properly after sitting in some car lot for three years. And not all Japanese drivers are careful.
It does seem unwise to buy a used car, even from a reputable dealer, which the buyer has yet to see. The odd thing about all this fraud and the stung Zimbabweans is that there are several alternatives, with the risk being transferred to those who have the knowledge and skills to avoid the worst of the expensive mistakes. The extra costs, and no intermediate dealer does his part for nothing, are not that large, since the final cost of an imported Japanese used car includes a lot of Zimbabwean tax. Those who really want to save the most dollars can go down to Durban and look at what has actually been landed in Southern Africa. At least they are seeing a car that physically exists being sold by a dealer who has a real address and a real name.
That dealer may import some duds, but if he knows that 5 percent of his imports are duds, he can throw away those five cars in every hundred and distribute their landed cost across the majority that are roadworthy. But some of these dealers send their cars across South Africa by transporter to Beitbridge, taking a percentage of course, but then the cost of moving cars by the batch might well be less per car than hoping that a single car will find the cheapest transport cost.
So you can choose there if you wish.
But there are Zimbabweans and Zimbabwean dealers who will clear the car through customs, clear it through the police, register it for the first time and bring it to the city where you live and there sell it, handing you all those exciting certificates that make life so much easier as you go through the Zimbabwean bureaucracy.
The advantage of dealing with these Zimbabweans is that you cannot just see the car, examine the certificates so you know the taxes have been paid and that the police believe it has never been stolen, but you can also take along a friendly mechanic to have a look at it and you can take it for a test drive.
And that can be worth a lot.
Used cars are sold without guarantees and the general warning that the buyer needs to beware applies even more so to a used car. Repaired accident damage is difficult to see unless you are an expert; the way the car was driven in Japan can be assessed by a decent mechanic, but the average person has no idea if it was driven by a teenage boy or a middle-aged lady.
This is one reason why the eastern approaches to the city centre have been so disfigured by used car lots. Many Zimbabweans have to buy these Japanese used cars because of the cost of alternatives, but they like to see what they are buying, like to drive what they are buying and like to remove the bulk of the risks. People with knowledge and skills can buy further up the chain, but unless you have a lot of knowledge and skill, the top of the chain, the original Japanese car dealer, is probably best left to a real expert to deal with.