If you’re among the drivers whose cellphones were impounded by the City of Cape Town due to illegal use while driving, you can get it back for half the normal price, if you hurry.

In July, the city announced it would be auctioning off around 5 200 unclaimed mobiles impounded by traffic and law officials since 2012. The city had explained that most drivers don’t come back to get their cellphones due to being embarrassed about being caught red-handed or avoiding being confronted for unpaid traffic fines.

Reclaiming a cellphone normally costs R1 100, payable at a Traffic Services office, but the city is offering whose cellphones were impounded by the end of 2014 the chance to pay R550 to have it back.

The city is currently preparing to auction the first 500 of 6 000 impounded cellphones. By law, unclaimed cellphones can be auctioned after three months. Cellphones that aren’t sold off are donated to charity.

The auction was supposed to have taken place already, but due delays relating to the processing of traffic offence fines in court and finding a service provider to wipe personal data off every mobile, the city has had to push it back to the end of this year.

The deadline for this grace period is the end of November.

“I am not sure whether anyone will take us up on the offer, but the cellphones will be disposed of either way. We are holding the auction and any devices not sold will be donated to a charity that can use them for their fieldworkers or activists,”  City of Cape Town Mayoral Committee member for safety and security, Alderman JP Smith, said in a statement.

[Source – City of Cape Town, image – CC 2.0 by Lord Jim]