On 23 March 2000 the Committee received an enquiry from a consumer, Mr "X" of Cape Town. He wrote:

"Please let me know if Metro Cash loans situated in Springs JHB is associated with Micro Lenders. I’ve Bought shares by them with a very bad uncertainty reply’s back to me again with my payments about my shares. Please let me know again".

He attached a number of documents to his enquiry. The entity was Metro Cash Loans Ltd (Metro, 99/06083/06). Messrs C Holsthauzen (Holsthauzen, ID 701002 5254 089) were the chairman and Z Beswick (Beswick, ID 670920 5068 083) the managing director of Metro respectively. The head office of Metro is in Springs and it had regional offices in George and Pietermaritzburg. The regional office in Pietermaritzburg was closed down in May 2000. Towards the end of March 2000 Metro had 20 micro cash loan branches in Gauteng, KwaZulu/Natal, Mapumalanga and the Western Cape. Since the end of March 2000 a number of these branches were closed down.