In Antalya’s Serik district, the vehicle owner who brought his pickup truck to the industry for visa procedures allegedly disappeared without paying for the vehicle he had repaired. Tradesmen who have not heard from the owner of the truck, who owes about 3 thousand 500 TL to three different tradesmen, for 15 days, said ‘we have been defrauded’.
The incident happened 15 days ago in Serik Industrial Site. Two unidentified people came to the industry with their pickup truck. Saying that the vehicle could not pass the inspection, the persons met with the auto mechanic, body shop and upholsterer for the work to be done on the truck. After the industrial tradesmen repaired the vehicle, they informed the vehicle owner by phone. The owner of the vehicle said that he would come to pay the fee but that his friend would take delivery of the vehicle. Believing the owner’s promise, the industrial tradesmen delivered the vehicle to the person who came. The moments of the vehicle owner and his friend coming to the industry and the delivery of the vehicle by his friend were recorded by the security camera for seconds.
Stating that there were people who did not pay after having their vehicles repaired before, auto mechanic Kerim Taş said, “The owner sent someone else to pick up the vehicle after having it repaired. He left without paying me, the upholsterer and the body shop. He even telephoned me, ‘I am in the bazaar, I will come and pay the money’. The truck’s brakes, upholstery and rear bumper were done. My loss is one thousand 200 liras. Many such incidents happened to me before. These things happen to me because I trust people. The vehicle came in the morning, ‘The brakes of the truck will be done. Do you recognize me?” he said. After the work was done, he sent someone else. When we talked on the phone, he said, ‘I am in the bazaar, I will come in 1 hour, I will pay your money. Give the car to the person who comes. But he didn’t show up and all three of us were defrauded.”
Durmuş Şahin, an upholstery master who stated that their labor was wasted rather than money after the incident, said, “The car owner came in the morning and gave us work. We did their work, they were people I did not know. We cannot ask everyone for their identity, we cannot ask if your money is in cash. So we did their work. Later, when we called the owner of the vehicle, he said, ‘He was on his way, he was at the lights at the industrial intersection. It has been 15 days and he is still coming. Right now their phone is switched off. We are not after his money. We cannot understand why he would attempt such a thing. If he tells us, ‘we don’t have any money right now’, maybe we won’t take any money. We are already making sacrifices for all our customers. It is only labor, nothing else, shame on us,” he said.
Bodywork master Ali Gündoğdu, who explained that the act was very difficult for them, said, “My upholstery master Durmuş brought the vehicle to me. He said, ‘The vehicle has failed the visa, there are a few procedures to be done’. When the car owners asked the price, I said, ‘It is not clear right now,’ and they left. I did the necessary work and delivered it to my Durmuş master and I never saw the owners of the vehicle again. They had the vehicle done and ran away. We are not on the money side of this, but is humanity dead? We will come back in a few days. We would understand if they said they didn’t have any money with them. After all, we are also human beings, but it was hard for us that they did not say that.”
Source: İHA
