Buyers beware!
Last Saturday, a reader drove her second hand car into Malaysia, but was stopped by Malaysian police just before the last checkpoint heading towards the Singapore side of the causeway.
She was puzzled and scared as she did not know what they stopped her for - as far as she knew, she had not done anything wrong and she had no outstanding offences in Malaysia.
Malaysian police impounded her vehicle, and finally told her that she had to settle 6 outstanding fines attributed to this vehicle in the years between 2004 and 2007. However, these fines were incurred by the vehicle's previous owner as the reader had bought the car only 2 years ago.
Our reader had to return to Singapore and get proof of her vehicle's registration to clear her name and claim her vehicle.
According to the reader, she had driven to Malaysia to get medicine for her daughter, but was stopped just before she cleared the final checkpoint at Malaysian customs.
"I saw more than 100 Singapore cars stopped there. Some 20 Singapore car owners were paying fines. There were even people who paid for about 20 fines."
Some of the fines she saw appeared to be arbitrary and unreasonable. One ticket indicated that her vehicle had covered 50KM in 13 minutes. The traffic police also told her that she could get a discount on her fines.
After returning to get her vehicle from the Malaysian police on the same day, she requested to have the fines incurred by the previous owner cancelled out. They refused.