Cell C's strange dealings with man of many promises

Dear South African cell phone users,



         Work this one out if you can.

         In April this year Kevin Pearman’s Germiston based, The World Loves a Winner company, concluded a written agreement to market Cell C. The plan Kevin submitted to clinch the deal predicted that he could virtually double Cell C’s market share with 10-million new members by 2014.

         He believed that as Cell C’s call rate had been cut to the lowest in the market at 99 cents his scheme would be far more effective than Cell C’s adverting campaign that had only brought in a million new members in the last year.

        

And as I had previously reported on Kevin’s tyre monitoring invention for heavy vehicles (See Big business turns on little man with ‘brilliant concept’) he sent me details of his Cell C appointment.

         The gist of it was that by selling sim cards investors would reap the following benefits: For a joining fee of R600 a month they would earn 3% of the monthly airtime purchased per card activated and 1.5% of the airtime used by the new members.

         Down the line they would also get 1% of the airtime used by the cards activated by the people their members recruited as well as R150 for each new member and R50 for anybody these people signed up.

         Kevin’s company would pay these amounts from commission he received from Cell C.

     

    It sounded a real money spinner for just about anybody. But as Kevin claimed You can easily make an extra R800 000 per annum or get there quicker it seemed too good to be true so I decided to check it with Cell C.

Knott-Craig

On 16 July I asked Alan Knott-Craig, the company’s Chief Executive, in an email, if the scheme had Cell C’s blessing. He was formerly the CEO at Vodacom.



         Three days later things began to unravel for Kevin.

         On 19 July, unknown to me at the time, Hilton Coverly, Cell C’s Executive Head, Informal Marketing told Kevin that the agreement was cancelled and his firm would no longer be allowed to market Cell C.

         On 10 August the story took a new twist. Surie Ramasary its Executive Head, Product Management replied to the email I sent to Knott-Craig saying Please note Cell C does not condone this type of business concept and we have not been privy to it. It is a breach of the current agreement signed. Thank you for bringing this to our attention.

         No mention was made of the fact that the contract had been cancelled three weeks earlier. And when I asked her in a subsequent email how she could say her firm knew nothing about the scheme when her name appeared on the agreement, I got no reply.

         On 20 August an angry Kevin sent a hand delivered letter to Knott-Craig pointing out that the agreement was reached after his marketing plan had been submitted and approved by Cell C’s officials. And one of the signatories was Coverly.

       

Comedian Trevor Noah in a Cell C ad

         Kevin stated he had met Coverly the previous day to ascertain the reason for this grossly unreasonable cancellation. But he got no sympathy and was told that it was done because it was a pyramid and get-rich-quick scheme.

         Kevin countered that this was completely untrue as We are promoting your company’s business in a legal, effective manner. He asked Knott-Craig to reconsider the cancellation.

         In his biography Second to Nothing Knott-Craig, who was formerly the CEO of Vodacom, told us that his word was his bond as he often clinched deals with just a handshake.

         But he seemed determined to stay clear of this one.

         On 21 August Kevin got a fax from Jose Dos Santos saying that as Cell C’s Chief Commercial Officer he had been mandated by Knott-Craig to deal with this matter. He stated that after having read all the documentation he had decided after carefully deliberating with my team that the termination letter sent on 19 July should remain in effect.

      

Kevin again

   Kevin protested to Dos Santos that he had never been told of any breach of the contract and that it was unreasonable to cancel it under a clause that said this could be done at any time at Cell C’s sole discretion without penalty on 60 days notice. Coverly, he claimed, had said his plan was like throwing sim cards out of a helicopter.

         He told me that since he began promoting the scheme 140 people had signed up as agents and he had had many more inquiries. He had obtained a written commitment from the Executive Council of the Kekana tribe at Hammanskraal to switch its 750 000 members to Cell C. Two other large tribes had given a similar undertaking verbally.

         Another possibility was that a union with 2.3-million members would be interested in joining.

         To date he had spent close to R150 000 on a website to control the operation and the cancellation would badly affect the many people who were relying on this for additional or in some cases their primary income.

        It looked as though big business had turned on the little man once again, although this time it was not quite as simple as that.

      

      Did Cell C belatedly tumble to Kevin’s very chequered business record?

         Kevin has never been short on new ideas. But if his Sunday Times advertisements (see examples) are anything to go by his promotions have always had a too-good-to- be- true, get-rich-quick image.

     

This was in December 2010

    He promised to make millionaires out of investors in his N-tyre Solutions, the company that has his tyre monitoring system. However this has been on the runway for more than 10 years and never seems to get off the ground.

         He said 450 people had invested in it, but it doesn’t look as though they will ever get anything back.

The hot pad money maker

         Last year he was asking people to put money into his latest venture – marketing reusable heating pads to treat muscle strains and the like. At the time he told me I want to rectify my already tarnished name and make sufficient money to finalise my N-tyre business.

         He said he had come a along way in allaying all the negative publicity surrounding myself and N-tyre, and I am having the first shareholders meeting (after many years) – one of the gripes against me.

         He soon bailed out of the hot pad business. So what happened to the investors, if any, is anyone’s guess.



This agreement was signed by just about all Cell  C's top brass except Knott-Craig

         He now says he started as a Cell C reseller out of necessity to raise the R2-million I need to launch N-tyre myself and that N-tyre’s potential was better than ever with the strong possibility of the insurance industry embracing it.

         He explained his dubious Sunday Times advertising (see examples) as the only way to get people to respond. The ST is rudely expensive and I must do whatever I can to get to talk to people, was his explanation.

         It looks as though Cell C should do a bit more research before it enters into its next contract. The internet makes it so easy these days.

         Yours suspiciously

         Jon, your Consumer Watchdog. 

P.S.   I think you’ll agree the world does love a winner, but it doesn’t have much time for losers.

GARY PLAYER - MR PERFECT

Dear Gary Player,

         Sorry you are now not the oldest man to strip naked for a photo shoot. Here I am a few months short of 80. That’s three years older than you.

         ESPN magazine seems to be a bit slow publishing my picture, but I can’t help it if they don’t recognise one that’s even more sensational than the one of you that appeared in its annual The Body Issue.

         Possibly you won’t agree but I thought that the one of US volleyball player Kerry Walsh Jennings beat both of us.



Is this Player?

         All this exercise business is totally overrated if you ask me. I know I won’t convince you as you constantly brag about the fact that you do 1 000 sit-ups a day and plan to push it up to 1 200 and have also won a few golf tournaments.

         Another one of your self boosting observations is that "Most people my age haven’t seen their private parts in 10 years because they have such a big stomach." (As a golfer it couldn’t be more serious if you can’t see your balls)

Mark Wiebe of the US
winner of the 2013 Senior British
Open

         The last time I looked I could see mine and if I couldn’t I could definitely feel them. Does that still count?

         The only time I do a sit-up is when I get to the dinning room table for a slap up meal of just about everything that is edible.

         Like a good golfer I see you are increasing the greens part of your diet from 70% to 85%.

     But tell me Gary is there any evidence that cows live longer than people? Aren’t they supposed to be blowing up the world with their gas? So imagine what it will be like if all the millions of people went out to graze as you seem to be advocating.

Or is this Player?

         From what you say Gary you are absolutely perfect. You have no aches or pains and you take no medication or supplements at all. And of course you have the body of a 77 year old.

Kerry Walsh Jennings
Volleyball

         Unlike you I take tablets for high blood pressure and cholesterol and I don’t mind taking them for any other problems I might have. I also swallow vitamins by the handful.

Of course you had to add that on your horse breeding ranch Mr Perfect helps mix cement and carry poles.

         I have had three back operations, probably caused by not doing nearly enough sit-ups. It was nothing to do with picking up 50 kg bags when I too was farming I can assure you. As a result the only golf I have played was more like hockey. 
         Currently I climb up on the roof of our house to fix gutters and leaks. I also build walls and generally see to the maintenance.

But I don’t tell the whole world about it.

         I like the way you say, "People who are my age, they’re dead" as if still being alive is another one of your great achievements.

         Has it ever occurred to you Mr Perfect that you might have been lucky enough to come off the assembly line with the right genes and that this is the main reason for your good health with 1 000 sit-ups a day and all that jazz having very little to do with it?

Player is serious
 about Player

         The Old Boy’s section of the magazine of the school I went to has a sort of roll of honour for those who have reached 80 or more. The oldest one in the latest edition is 97 and there are lots of others between him and the 80 year olds.

          I doubt very much whether many of them attribute their longevity to your kind of rigorous exercise regime. So I don’t think you can hold it up as the perfect recipe for a long and ache free life for all of us.

         You say you are a grandfather of 23 as if that was all your own work. But in reality that’s a minus because you have indirectly contributed to over populating an already very crowded world.

         It would seem that you are far from being the ideal person to teach the grandkids that bragging is not the way to behave. If golf was a team sport like cricket or rugby your fellow players would have knocked modesty into you a very long time ago.

       

  You also promote yourself as an anti-obesity role model because you say this is "an issue of the utmost urgency. You go on to tell us, "If I can encourage today’s youth to focus on health and fitness, I will count that as a great victory."

         All very noble. You hardly need to be a genius or a cultural expert to knock a little ball around, but as a South African, who has paid a few visits to the States, you now seem to think you know what’s good for that entire country.

         The Sunday Times quoted you as saying; "The trouble with Americans is that they don’t appreciate America enough." Of course if anybody should know about this it’s our roving expert on nations Mr Perfect.

        I can't think of a tactful way of saying this Gary so here goes. You are not quite as perfect as you seem to think. In fact you have a huge flaw – your BIG BIG HEAD.

         Regards,

Jon, a well-known shrink who has a sign on his desk which says,

Once I thought I was wrong, but I was mistaken. 

P.S. Has nobody every mentioned to you Gary that if you have achieved significant things in life everybody knows about them, so you don’t have to keep reminding them every time you appear in the Media. You will no doubt remember two of your most recent modesty gems that you gave The Telegraph about your first British Open win at Muirfield. This was after you hit the headlines when you had the balls to pose nude for ESPN quite contrary to the stuffy dress code of any golf club you have ever been in. Here they are.

        "I walked up to the President a Mr McMaster and told him I was going to win. I was still a long way back and he probably thought I was mad, but I knew I could do it."

       And this is what you recalled 50 years later you told The Telegraph. "Playing with old clubs and the ball of the time I managed to shoot 68 with a double bogey at the end. I thought to myself, 'Gee you must have been pretty good back then.'”  



Kiss to build a dream on

*Note to my Blog Readers:  It’s unlikely that Gary hasn’t told you but just in case you don’t know he won nine major golf tournaments as well as three senior British Opens. He was also the third golfer in history to win the grand slam (all the major titles in the same year) and during his career he triumphed at a total of 165 tournaments in six continents. 

P.P.S. Player(79) in his second childhood showing off like a five year old.

      

Gary as modest as ever just before the 2016
Olympic Games

Obama try making friends for a change

Dear Barack Obama old boy,

al-Qaeda chief

         A ragtag group of poorly educated men in turbans and nightshirts are running rings round your good old US of A.

         They’re making a laughing stock of your country that purports to be the greatest one on earth yet has all the
hallmarks of a nation on the slide.

         Do you and your bungling CIA honestly believe that a group that so brilliantly organised 9/11 is now so incompetent that it doesn’t realise that your guys eaves drop on everything?

         al-Qaeda’s chief Ayman al-Zawahiri tells his Yemen leader to do something and you press the nation’s panic button that closes US embassies all over the Middle East.

       

Don't laugh too soon

  Talk about running scared. Talk about encouraging the enemy. Yet the exercise is so insane that the closures were only designed to last for a few days as if al-Qaeda is a robot that once set can’t have it’s timing changed.

         Can American tourists now claim a tax deduction for bullet proof vests when they go abroad because you and previous administrations have made the stars and stripes a symbol of hated, wicked oppression?

         You might as well close all your embassies permanently. They won’t serve any purpose if it’s too dangerous for your citizen’s to travel.

         How about this for an idea? Get your country and the CIA in particular to stop meddling in everybody else’s business. Start a make friends offensive. If it’s half as good as the way you have made enemies it will be a great success.

         Tell me Barack old boy how would you feel if you and Michelle had organised a lavish wedding for your eldest daughter Malia. And while you were celebrating the happy event attended by hundreds of guests a hijacked Spectre gunship appeared overhead and opened up?

A lot of Arabs don't see the joke

         If you were lucky it would perhaps leave only you and Michelle badly wounded but alive while everyone else, including your two lovely daughters would not only be dead, but in many cases so mutilated as to be unrecognisable.

         As you know these AC -130 gunships carry such a formidable array of machine guns and canons that their ghoulish crews brag: Blood bath is our way of getting clean.

The lethal bird of prey

         So if your family was to be at the receiving end of one of these flying mincing machines you would do what you have done to Bin Laden. You would hunt the perpetrators across the world until they were taken out.

         Well that’s exactly what al-Qaeda is doing in retaliation for what you Yanks have done to make friends and influence people among the Arabs. You can’t go around murdering thousands of their men, women and children without encouraging more 9/11s and similar attacks on Americans everywhere.

         Your cowardly gunship crews slaughtered so many people at weddings in Afghanistan that one satirical blogger wrote in 2008: I’d say it’s about time we gave up on the wedding-party bombing strategy. We’ve been following it for over six years now, and things are worse in that country than when we first started bombing it’s weddings.

         On one of these occasions the saturation gunship fire was so great that afterwards relatives were burying pieces of flesh pulled off trees instead of bodies.  Nothing that moved remained alive, cats, dogs, sheep the lot were butchered with their owners.

         Barack why not try making friends instead of gunships. It might keep a lot more people alive and pro USA.

         Yours hopefully,

         Jon, an International Peace Advisor 

P.S. Just a friendly bit of advice. If you ever have to organise a wedding call on a better intelligence service than the CIA to make sure everything goes without a hitch.

Killings that divide a nation

 Dear Animal Lovers,

         The British Government plans to murder my friends on a huge scale. But there just might be enough of you to stop this.

         It’s taken centuries for the Brits to become mature enough to realise that killing animals for fun is not on.

         They outlawed fox and deer hunting with dogs in 2005. That was for the amusement of toffs and the idle rich, so with their influence they managed to keep their sport going a bit longer than the poor man’s equivalent – badger digging. That was made illegal in 1992.

         It was an even more barbaric form of murder.

         More than half a century ago when I was a reporter for an evening newspaper in Exeter I tagged along on one of these hunts.

      

   In the midst of a wood our hounds, two little Jack Russels, located a badger burrow or sett and fearless disappeared underground. When their owners heard them barking they began to dig. Eventually the fluffy badger that was exposed was shot at point blank range.

         When they pulled out the body of what turned out to be a mother or sow three helpless, pink cubs that hadn’t yet open their eyes appeared.

            I felt that one was all I could hope to save so I took it. To begin with it had to be fed with milk every two hours and later this was extended to every four. As my wife was working it went with me to the Express and Echo in a cardboard box. The box was put on top of a radiator in the copytakers room to keep it warm and in between typing stories from reporters Joan Pond and Rosemary Sims became its foster parents. After 10 weeks it was still being fed every four hours and Badger’s high pitched squeaks had become part of the scene in the editorial department. With some trepidation I introduced it to our dog Chaka and the two became best of pals. Eventually when it got too much of a handful for us to keep any longer I passed it on to the presenter of a TV animal show.

         The other two were killed by the intrepid hunters.

         Badgers are delightful, lightning fast little animals with an impressive bite. Mainly nocturnal they weigh about 24 kg and they feed on rodents, insects and bulbs. In their own environment a Jack Russel is no match for them. And when one of the dogs on my hunt came up with part of his face hanging open his owner stitched it up there and then.

         He had hardly put him back on the ground when this gutsy little dog was down the hole once again.

         Now farmers and some experts have convinced the Conservative dominated coalition Government that the badger protection law needs to be bypassed so that thousands of these animals can be shot in various parts of England.

         They are being blamed for spreading tuberculosis in cattle which resulted in 28 000 having to be slaughtered in England last year.

         A 10 year Government study that cost 50-million pounds is conveniently being ignored. It concluded that badger culling was unlikely to contribute to the control of cattle TB.

         The opposition Labour Party is against the cull and after a four hour debate in Parliament it lost the vote by 250 to 299. 

         But more than 250 000 people are determine to stop the slaughter. They have signed a Save the badger petition which has the support of celebrities like Queen guitarist Brian May and naturalist TV presenter Bill Eddie.

Brian May leading the protest

         They were joined by hundreds of people, many with badger masks or with their faces painted black and white, on the streets of London when the petition was handed in at the Prime Minister’s residence in Downing Street.

         The move has divided the nation – animal lovers in the towns against farmers in the country.

         This animal is so much part of English life that Mr Badger was one of the characters in that timeless children’s book Wind in the willows by Kenneth Grahame. Since it was first publish in 1908 there have been a host of different versions over the years and it has been made into films as well as a BBC radio series.

         It is hard to think of a more ridiculous plan. There are an estimated 300 000 badgers in Great Britain and as a pilot scheme the Government intends to have 5 000 of them shot over a four year period in parts of just two counties.

         Even if they do spread TB in cattle how will this drop in the ocean possible help?

        So all you animal lovers keep up the pressure on the British Government until they abandon this hair brain idea.

         The only practical answer is to stop wasting money on trying to eradicate badgers and to put a lot more resources into developing an effective vaccine again TB in cattle.

         Regards,

         Jon, a Badger Lover who knows first hand just how cute they can be. 

Lindiwe Mazibuko - fighting way above her weight

Dear Lindiwe Mazibuko,

         You’ve really got South Africa’s ruling party the African National Congress (ANC) in a twitter, especially its male Members of Parliament.

         They can’t stand the fact that you are cleverer and more articulate than they are.

Worse still you are a Black woman who is supposed to know her place as subservient to them.

         Worst of all at 33 you are the Parliamentary leader of the Democratic Alliance (DA), the ANC’s main opposition party and its sworn enemy.

         It’s a sure sign of mental inadequacy when a person has to resort to insults in a debate when they are being outwitted by their opponent. And that’s just what has been happening to certain ANC members who have found you too quick witted for comfort.

         How many of these loud mouths would have dared to appear on BBC’s Hard Talk. None of them I bet, least of all South Africa’s President Jacob Zuma. It’s not called that for nothing as you know because the interviewer pulls no punches.

         Yet you came through the cut and thrust of that encounter superbly. Nobody, except your brainless ANC opponents, could have been anything else but impressed by your self assurance and political nous.

        You must have been delighted with all the praise you got on social media.

         Of course it’s nothing new for you to be personally insulted by members of the ANC. One of the first was that uneducated upstart Julius Malema when he was President of the ANC’s Youth League.

         As you know he delighted in saying of you, "She’s the tea girl of the Madam, and her role must remain there." He was talking about your relationship with Helen Zille, the White leader of the DA.

         But while your star has continued to rise higher and higher in South African politics he has been kicked out of the ANC and is struggling for recognition in the wilderness.

      

Lindiwe with the Madam by her side

         More recently, when you were highlighting the many flaws in President Zuma’s leadership during his budget speech in Parliament, some of his underlings felt they had to come to the rescue of Number 1.

         The best John Jeffery could think of was, "While the Honourable Mazibuko may be a person of substantial weight, her stature is questionable."

         Encouraged by this Buti Manamela piped up with; "Honourable Mazibuko has bad fashion taste and has been arrested by the Fashion Police. Blame Zuma, everything must be blamed on Zuma."

         I accept you could improve your dress sense but what you were wearing – a red jacket over a black and white dress with black tights – was by no means the worst fashion crime in the house. In any case all that the dress code stipulates is that it must be in accordance with the dignity of Parliament, something that would be hard to fathom at times.

         The ANC subsequently refused to withdraw its claim that you were inappropriately dressed but apologised for saying you were overweight.

       

No Books Angie

  No wonder, it has had heavyweight problems of its own. And boy did the Minister of Basic Education Angie Motshekga and her ANC get their knickers in a twist when a very large pair labelled Angie’s knickers was carried through the streets by protesting teachers.

         The members of the South African Teachers Union were threatened with "the full wrath of our justice system" (Toothless at the best of times). Quite justifiably they want the Minister, who is in charge of the worst education shambles in the world, to resign.

         It was ironic that in a letter to the Union she wrote that the panty protest "signified that women cannot be fully human and so society has every right to poke fun at women in very denigrating ways."

South Africa's new National Flag

        Of course that’s exactly what the two faced ANC has been doing to you.

         Ever the optimist Angie maintained, "Not only do they owe an apology to me, but the rest of South African women."

         Lindiwe there are lots of other ANC members who would tip the scales in their favour with you on the other side. But when it comes to well articulated, intelligent debating ability they would have a job finding someone in your league.

         So laugh off these ANC barbs because far from diminishing your stature they are actually enhancing it and getting your name up in lights, which is just what you need in politics.

Inappropriately dressed

         Keep punching well above your weight and those ANC smart alecs could have egg on their faces if your Star performer and Black, young and gifted tags eventually help to ensure that your DA becomes the champion that governs the entire country.

         Best wishes from a Huge Admirer,

         VIVA LA DA (I speak isiZulu)

         Jon 

P.S. I see you went to St Mary’s that posh school in Durban. Isn’t that another one of the ANC’s gripes, that you speak English too well to be one of us Blacks? St Mary’s schools produce real class. I should know. I am lucky enough to be married to an old girl (she’ll kill me for saying that) of the Johannesburg St Mary’s where Helen Zille went to school (Nothing like name dropping to enhance my career).