Hopefully you saw my post a couple of days ago, we have finally purchased a car, otherwise known as 'Rex'. The journey to finally owning Rex gives an insight into the complexities of living in the UAE as an expat.
We looked at several cars over the last 6 months and none stood up to what was advertised. It was a frustrating time consuming exercise. Remember the days of the dodgy car salesman tactics....winding back odometers, posting photographs of cars that were not the same car when inspected and any other dodgy trick you can conjure up in your mind, well they are still alive and well over here!
Finally last week we found a car that matched our criteria, one phone call later and Naz confirmed it was an expat owned car and sounded like it was legitimately worth checking out. So off we headed to the outer suburb area, very appropriately called Motorcity! And BINGO it was perfect, the people were lovely, car was in immaculate condition and the kilometres were legitimate (owners were able to provide full service history, unheard of here) so we arranged to meet at the RTA first thing Saturday morning to complete the paperwork and handover. We left floating on a cloud, finally a car, and WOW how easy was that in the end....... oh how wrong we were!
Saturday morning arrived and after an early morning trip to Bur Dubai to the only branch of our bank in Dubai that actually holds money we arrived at the RTA on time...... the owners and car were 45 minutes late so not a great start.
The car passed it's mechanics test and Naz then spent 2 hours in and out of lines to complete insurance and registration handover while I attempted to entertain Piper in the waiting room. Finally we got to the last step... only to discover Naz had an outstanding traffic fine in Abu Dhabi... and this is when the UAE madness really began.
Naz had an incident with a hire car and a taxi that got in the way of his reversing 2 months ago when he was working at Yas Island. At the time we followed all the protocol, checked the website for a fine, had an Arabic colleague of mine read the paperwork and we all came to the conclusion the police officer had not fined Naz (it wasn't made clear by the police officer at the time due to language difficulties).
Wrong - he was fined after the incident?!? All UAE emirates are very distinctly and independently governed so this fine was also not showing up on the Dubai fine website. I should point out you are not mailed your fines here, it is up to the individual to regularly check a website to see if he has received any fines.
You are unable to purchase a car with outstanding fines so we had to pay immediately, which should be easy, it was only a small fine..... but after 3 separate attempts to pay on their 'integrated' system which allows you to pay fines for different Emirates they informed us the system was down and we would need to drive to Abu Dhabi to pay...... yes drive right then and there all the way to Abu Dhabi for 1 lousy fine! The customer service rep was helpful and gave us clear directions to a service station just over the border which contained an automated fine paying machine. Thankfully we had a hire car for the weekend so off we went!
After stopping at the wrong service station we finally found the right one and the automated machine..... which of course we could not get to accept Naz's license or violation number. Eventually we saw a patrol car in the car park and Naz ran out and asked for help. They confirmed the machine was not working and the walk-in office where you can pay your fine was closed for the day.
Completely and utterly frustrated we then drove back to Dubai, returned the hire car and picked up our new car from the RTA car park. The previous owner was kind enough to sign all the paperwork and authorise everything and trust we would complete the paperwork the next day. The RTA Manager also agreed to this and held the paperwork for us to return the next day with a receipt for the paid fine.
All night I logged into the online payment system only to be met with nothing.... I tried every known phone payment service also to no avail.
So come Sunday morning I headed to work and poor Naz and Piper once again headed down the highway to Abu Dhabi. This time however he went directly to the office to pay in person. After handing over his license details he was bluntly informed no fine existed and he must be confused and the fine was in the Dubai Emirate...... do I really need to describe Naz's reaction to this......
After a little vocal encouragement from Naz the customer service rep tried and again and what do you know there the fine was! Back in the car with receipt they headed back to Dubai RTA to finalise our car purchase.
Arriving at midday Naz was then informed by the staff at the RTA only the manager he had dealt with the day before could finalise the registration and could he please come back after 4pm when he started work.
Home again and back again at 4pm..... this time told no again as the manager was not working that day at all! Well as Naz's blood pressure went up and his arms started gesturing wildly (highly offensive over here) I grabbed Piper and headed for the door trying to work out how on earth I was going to explain to my boss that we had been deported! After a long tense stand-off and much gesturing they miraculously found the paperwork, signed it off and presented us with our registration card!!
At this time I have to point out the whole affair had become so ridiculous we couldn't even laugh or smile with relief as we got in 'our' car and drove away, we were exhausted. It should also be noted that our story of grief when relayed to my colleagues and friends was met with a lot of "took me 4 trips to get mine", "that's not too bad I have heard worse", "Oh good you got it done, that was quick" aaaaargh the madness of this place sometimes kills me. In many ways it is so modern and sophisticated and others so backwards it baffles me!
NOTE: I wrote this yesterday and since then experienced my craziest Dubai moment yet this morning but have to save that story for another day as I am still too seething and angry and need to calm down a bit so I can edit my anger.
