DURBAN: Brenda Shepard of Hillcrest has since October 2014 been inundated with traffic fines and e-toll bills for five different cars. All the car number plates match those of her Mercedes-Benz B-Class.
Shepard’s husband Steve is convinced that his pensioner wife is at the mercy of an unrelenting scam.
Brenda received her first “traffic fine” on 20 March last year for silver VW Golf in Margate. The tickets have not stopped coming. She was most recently fined R500 in Mogale City, Krugersdorp, on the West Rand, on 11 February for the activities of a dark blue/black Mercedes-Benz C-Class. The C-Class was also fined in Howick and in Pretoria in August and December respectively.
The Shepards have also been receiving e-toll bills since March 2014.
Strangely, one of the bills records a “large truck” using different number plates but bears Brenda’s particulars.
She has racked up R3700 for 11 fines and R204 for e-toll bills.
Her pile of documents reveals that she had also been in different cities across KwaZulu-Natal, Gauteng and the Free State. Other vehicles include a white Hyundai i10, fined twice, a Honda, once, a “large truck” and three “unidentified” vehicles.
FRUSTRATED BY LACK OF RESPONSE
Steve said they were baffled because his wife “never drives beyond Waterfall or Kloof”.
He said he had contacted the authorities where the cars had been fined but was frustrated by the lack of response, saying only the Johannesburg municipality had assisted.
“They gave her a letter to keep in her car, with a copy at home. If she gets stopped by police at any time for the tickets, she has an official letter saying it’s a scam.”
Steve said his wife had never driven the car to Johannesburg or any of the other places because “she wouldn’t drive that far”.
He suspected that the car’s number plates had been cloned.
“We are now looking for somebody in KwaZulu-Natal, where we can go and present all these documents for them to be withdrawn, but I haven’t found anybody,” he said.
