Disabled fleeced by scamster
Victims want their money back
QUADRAPLEGIC Gregg Millen dreamt of a more comfortable life by his 50th birthday, when he expected to receive a top-class new wheelchair that he had bought for R220 000.
But after he paid in February last year, the agent for the Swedish-manufacturer, Donovan Walters, claimed he did not have the funds to buy it, leaving Millen shattered.
“My heart sank. It was a massive blow. My excitement came crashing down.
“My birthday is on May 14 and I had hoped the wheelchair would be here by the end of April. I was really very excited.
“It can tilt backwards and forwards and stop my leg spasms. It can recline to relieve the pressure on my bum. I can put my feet up and it helps with my blood pressure,” he said.
Millen was paralysed from the neck down a decade ago after he jumped over a wall, breaking his neck.
Millen, a former financial adviser, paid attorneys about R38 000 and obtained a writ of execution against Walters, the owner of Boksburg-based MobilityOne, which still sells equipment for the disabled.
The writ allows the sheriff to attach and sell Walters’s property and belongings and return Millen’s money. But Walters has apparently moved to Ballito, Kwa-Zulu Natal.
Although the sheriff visited Ballito four times to search for Walters, he failed to find him.
“He feels absolutely nothing. He’s keeping his shop open. I can’t bear it. He’s targeting people with the least resistance. People will try to get their money, but he bargains on the fact they won’t be able to carry on,” said Millen.
His sister Tracey said: “What blows my mind is that never would I have thought that someone would steal from the disabled.”
He is not the only disabled person disappointed by Walters.
Another of Walters’s alleged victims, Antonio Di Nardo, from Sunninghill in Gauteng, paid Walters R130 000 last year for a technologically-advanced mobility scooter, a device that he hoped would be life-changing, but according to Di Nardo Walters neither delivered the scooter nor returned the money.
“He missed numerous delivery dates. I received an e-mail from MobilityOne at the end of June saying they no longer wanted to honour his agreement. I want a reimbursement within 14 days,” Di Nardo wrote in a complaint to the National Consumer Council, which told the family it was working on the case.
Rejected
Via e-mails, Walters offered Di Nardo an inferior scooter for R58 000, which was rejected.
Walters promised to begin repaying Di Nardo, but has not. He also told Di Nardo that he used the money to pay the SA Revenue Service.
Di Nardo had borrowed money from relatives and R50 000 from the engineering firm he worked for. “I am so stressed out because I have to pay them back,” he said.
He was diagnosed with partial paralysis in 1998 and his nerves and muscles became weaker and his health has deteriorated. Di Nardo relied on mobility scooters, but both his old ones are broken and he was “really desperate” to have a new one, he said.
“I can’t believe what he’s done to me. It’s too much… too much to do it to people with disabilities. He has no heart. He’s not human.”
Johanna Kah from Windhoek was walking past a protest in Walvis Bay in 1977 when she saw the protesters beating a 13-year-old boy. She tried to protect him, but was beaten as well. Her legs were injured and she became disabled. Her doctor prescribed a mobility scooter.
After Kah paid Walters R22000 for a scooter in April, he disappeared.
She laid a fraud charge in May. The police handed it over to Interpol, according to Kah, and she said she was told it would take a long time for the case to be investigated.
“He has robbed me of a better life. You think you’ve given your money to a trustworthy person in the hope it will bring relief from your pain.”
MobilityOne proclaims on its website that it is “passionate about giving back quality of life to the disabled” and “every effort in your day directly affects the lives of others”.
Walters told Weekend Argus he had helped “hundreds of hundreds of people for 12 years” but had “dropped a ball or two”. “They want to cut my hands and feet off,” he said about the complaints.
When questioned about owing Millen R160000, he answered: “I’m not going to sit here and try to explain myself.”
He ended the call when asked where the money was.