The real Zahor

Just Business-

We’ve been hiking all over this part of Dar looking for things like a washtub or a surge protector and these are the sights along the way-

We narrowly avoided a major scam while trying to buy a car from the local street dealers yesterday. We had arranged to purchase a nice looking 4WD Suzuki from a friend of Eddie and Samuel on Friday. The guy who first showed us the car and who we thought owned the car, we thought was named Zahor. Saturday, when we all met to go over to the govt. TRA office to transfer the registration there was another man (the boss of all these guys) who was the real ‘owner’ of the car and was the real Zahor! This was unsettling to find that we had been misled, but we figured that if we could get some official paperwork from the TRA we would be protected. On our way to the agency we learned that the real Zahor is employed by the govt. as an import revenue agent, so he claimed that he could facilitate the registration transfer. However, when we got there the office was closed- which sent up red flag #2 for us since we figured that he must have already known this. Even so, we were still arguing about the price and the terms of our agreement hoping to strike a deal. Ruth and I insisted that the cost of the registration name change is included in the total price and that this step precede payment. The day before, with the fake Zahor this arrangement had been no problem- but when we met with the actual Zahor, it was the deal breaker. He insisted that we transfer the $ for the car into his bank account before the re-registration name change, and that we pay for the registration which he claimed should only cost a fraction of the price of the vehicle. We were skeptical but still not sure, and we happened to be arguing this point with the real Zahor outside his bank when coincidentally one of our acquaintances from the Jambo Inn happened along. Manji saw us with these guys and pulled me aside and said to be careful, that many times the cars which are owned by government employees or NGOs have not yet had the taxes paid and so will have to be paid when the registration is transferred to a new owner. Without even knowing that the real Zahor was working for the government, Manji had hit the nail on the head! I thanked him and returned to Ruth and the real Zahor convinced that this was the case. If we purchased the vehicle then we would also have to pay the Tanzanian import taxes which are ~ 100% of the original price! The real Zahor was getting Japanese cars from the ships, not paying taxes thanks to his government position and then selling these cars at higher prices with hidden registration costs to foreigners. Eddie, Samuel and the fake Zahor were all working for the real Zahor, finding naive buyers like Ruth and I. We were lucky to find out in time and we cancelled the deal. So now we’re back to square 1, but we know not to buy our car from a shady dealer OR government employee. We had to learn the hard way I guess. What is also funny is that it seems like everybody in the neighborhood knows that we were going to buy this car and they all agree that we were being scammed and that we made the right decision not to buy it. But nobody else warned us beforehand! Nothing personal, it’s just business.