Important information regarding your application process.
Although the National Credit Act allows protection when your application is received there are three important facts you have to remember.
- Debit Orders
The Act states very clearly that all your credit providers MUST stop all debit orders that they
have on your account. The fact is that they don’t bother, leaving you with a “double payment “when you have paid your PDA account as well. This “grabbing” of funds by the credit providers is in direct violation with the Act as the said credit provider gives himself an advantage above others. The Act states that all creditors will enjoy equal benefits and rights. Although the money drawn from your account can be reversed we advise that you open another account (with a bank where you don’t have credit) to avoid this hassle.
- Final notices (Section 129)
According to the Act a credit provider can only refuse to accept your application if a Section 129notice (final notice) have been delivered and the time mentioned in that noticed has lapsed. As we do in our application form, we urge all applicants to be very honest in providing info on these notices. Should there be a 129 notice that has lapsed that account will not be included in your application and subsequently the asset attached to that account will be repossessed.
Please take note of this as we cannot be held liable for advising and informing you on your favorable application when this fact is being withheld from us.
- Calls from creditors
Once you have applied for debt review and your details have been submitted to the NCR all creditors will receive notice that your application was made. As a result you will most likely start receiving calls from your credit providers stating you have to pay immediately to avoid legal action. THIS IS HARRASMENT AND EMPTY THREATS AND MUST BE IGNORED!.
The reason for the sudden calls is from the COLECTIONS DEPARTMENT and NOT form the Debt review department. Part of the salary structure of collection agents is based on commission the earn as a result of money that they collect from you! NEVER will the debt review department phone you and all other calls from creditors should be referred to us
These calls from creditors immediately puts us as your debt counselor in a bad light and creates distrust between you and us.
Should you have any further questions or comments please email us at
Debt counselling and Insolvency 
Creditors calling consumers that are under debt review is a major problem. As soon as the client receives a call from a collection agent, he/she immediately assumes that the Debt counsellor is not doing his/her job. The (the client) then calls the debt counsellor and they end up having an argument over the validity of the debt review process and if it is indeed what the debt counsellor promised it to be.
I hop this explanation will help as far as to prepare the clients to the possibility of this happening.
Personally I think that credit providers do this intentionally to disrupt the relationship that consumers have with their debt counsellors.
LikeLiked by 2 people
What do you think is the best way to handle this problem Kaydee? Unfortunately it is in human nature to first react to the statement even if it is not true and then to unintentionally discharge that anger at the wrong side.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Reblogged this on Debt counselling – Pretoria and commented:
Great explanation of some of the tactics creditors use to disrupt relasioships between debt counsellors and their clients.
LikeLiked by 2 people
My question is this. Why does the NCR “ignore” complaints that Debtr counsellors have against this practice from the credit providers?
As soon as a complaint is lodged against a debt counsellor, the NCR immediately reacts with (in my opinion) prejudice and assumes that the Debt counsellor is wrong. Our office handles a lot of debt counselling applications and we face the “time waste” of responding to complaints by consumers who is in default and that we have cancelled their applications. Eventually the “complaint” gets sorted out and we have never been negligent. But if we lodge a complaint against a credit provider for non compliance (that which the ACT prescribes) nothing comes of that.
Anyway, this is a great article Stefan and maybe this will sort out some problems in the future.
LikeLiked by 1 person
We are seeing an upswing to better response from the regulator concerning bad practice and enforcing the Act. Hopefully this will filter down to the complaints department as well.
LikeLike
We are implementing as of this week a new system that will try and minimize the confusion that the consumers gets from creditors calling them and contradicting our statements and promises.
We have always sent a explanatory document to the clients stating that this exactly will happen but we have never controlled the responses we get as far as data from clients. Please have a look on the website under “support”. Here we will re direct all telephonic calls so that we keep absolutely all correspondence in writing.
If you get a call from a consumer please state that he/she must lodge all comments/ queries/ complaints in writing using the “support” platform on the main site.
We have implemented a dedicated support desk to handle all comments and queries and pass on complaints to that department.
Furthermore, we have sent out to all of you templates of the new prescribed documentation that must accompany all signed Form 16’s. This includes but is not limited to a document that explains the tactics by the banks en how all support queries must be handled.
I will see how this new method will hopefully reduce any confusion and if not I will just follow procedure and lodge complaints against credit providers with the NCR until something is done about this
I think if and when the complaints from our side starts, I will dedicate a page on this website to allow public awareness on this
Thank you all for your input
Stefan
LikeLike