Help Us Get A Car

My name is Rick Robinson.

I'm the oldest of four, living with my siblings, my mother, and my grandmother.

We've been in financial turmoil since my father died on 8 December 2013. His income went out the door, and my mother quit her job not long afterwards.

We can barely meet the essentials of life each week. Often we go two to three days without any food. We're forced to borrow and sell to make ends meet. Even then, it's still not enough.

Here's why: Aqua Cars & Finance.

We've been paying for a car through this company for several years. In the last year or so, we've fallen behind on payments, which is natural considering our income has been significantly lessened.

But that's not the end of it.

We've had nothing but trouble from Aqua. We've had incidents where payments haven't been recognized by them, on more than one occasion. Only when we've alerted them to this, have they rectified it.

We've also has dodgy dealings when it comes to repairs. We took the car in to get a minor fault fixed. Not only was the issue not dealt to, our new battery (which we paid for) had been replaced with a faulty one. They apparently failed to notice this.

The company has a practice where the car will be de-mobilized if the weekly payment isn't made. Sadly, they don't seem to stick to this as well as they should. We've been de-mobilized on countless occasions, even after making our payments.

We've fallen so far behind, that now, they refuse to fix anything wrong with the car. Here's a taste of what's ailing:

- Faulty battery

- Unreliable/broken SRS system

- Extremely faulty ignition

... and other issues. The ignition, in particular, has gotten so bad that we can't even turn the key to start the car. It's effectively dead.

The car isn't safe to drive. We can't get a warrant. We can't afford to get ourselves up-to-date with payments. We've got so little income. I'm not even going to detail how many tickets we've gotten to due this pile of crap we call a car. We had an incident where the car needed to be re-registered and the plates changed. The plates got changed, but Aqua didn't re-register it for months afterward. We're still in the dark as to what they've done about it.

We could always send the car back and try and get ourselves up to date, but where would that leave us?

My grandmother is 63 years old. She's on more medication than anyone in the house. Diabetes, a heart condition (she's had a heart attack already), high blood pressure, you name it, she's got it. Her chronic arthritis is her biggest issue. She can barely walk around the house, let alone to anywhere in this district. Without a car, she is essentially housebound.

The stress has taken its toll on everyone. My mother has attempted suicide several times this year already. It pains me to see my family suffering.

We're looking to raise at least $2000 minimum to get a car. We'll be able to live a little easier, to live without the shadow of Aqua hanging over us.

Any money that remains after the car's been bought will be donated to the Cancer Society.