In what appears to be a flurry of lawsuits, the Chief Executive Officer of Satinsky, Albert Venter is suing left right and centre following the collapse of the company that was offering customers cars at an average repayment rate of R699 per month, a figure way below that which a client normally pays. According to media reports, Venter is suing a customer for one million rand while at the same time he has instituted another lawsuit against a bank for a staggering amount of twenty five billion rand.
Satinsky had a scheme whereby their clients would obtain a car which would have been financed by a bank. Instead of paying the normal bank rate, the customers would have it subsidized, so to speak, by a payment that they received from the company as advertising fees on condition that they drove the car a stipulated number of kilometres per month with the scheme adverts pasted onto the back of their cars. This would result in some customers paying to the bank as little as R699 per month, hence the company is sometimes called the R699 company. The scheme collapsed in July and all banks involved called on the affected customers requesting full payment for the vehicles, something that was unaffordable to the clients.
When Satinsky approached the four big South African banks, that is Nedbank, Standard Bank, ABSA and Wesbank, the latter is the only one that did not capitulate. Wesbank CEO, Chris de Kock said in July that the reason his company had not taken up business with the car company was because there was concern with the car company’s business plan, which he said showed elements of a Ponzi scheme. A Ponzi scheme, named after a 1920s American business man, Charles Ponzi is a fraudulent investment scheme where a business entity pays interest on old investments from the funds put in by new investors instead of from interest generated. The Satinsky 128 CEO, in papers served to the bank by his lawyers, says he lost R25 billion after WesBank divulged this confidential information to third parties regarding the details of their financing scheme. This, he argued, was in breach of the confidentiality of the agreement as the information given had been for the purposes of the pending agreement.
Last week, Albert Venter made headlines when he took to court one of the customers of the schemes for defamation to the tune of one million rand after the customer, Cornelia Maria Nel posted some comments on a Facebook page called ” I Have Been Done in By Drive a New Car for R699 Per Month”. In his claim, Venter argued that the comments made on the page were wrong and defamatory as they created the impression that he had improperly benefitted from the scheme. In one of her other posts on the page which is said to have been created by angry customers who had been affected by the deal, Nel also gave the impression that Venter was planning to run away to the Russian Federation using a private jet, pictures of which she offered to send to whoever requested them. She had even given the coordinates of Venters’ house in Pretoria. The Eastern Cape High Court reserved judgement on the matter. It was reported that it would be heard in the Pretoria High Court but details of the date were not disclosed.
These “699” clients should have read the small print a lot more carefully, particularly the actual agreement of indebtedness they were signed up to with the financing banks on their behalf by the vehicle salesman – therein lies the inescapable rub.The old adage unfortunately still holds true – “a fool and his money are soon parted”
If there was need for a confidentiality agreement, then the scheme must have been a scam or Ponzi. If it was truly innovative, then there would have been other ways to protect it from being copied. (copyright, patents etc.)
“Satin”sky…
This guy must be nuts!
I concur Bob. There were two separate agreements; one with the bank and the other with Satinsky. The banks are therefore within their rights to call in the loans. Old fool indeed!