Debtfree DIGI Magazine Aug 2016

more staff. During their discussions the NCR send explicit written warning that should the Debt
Counsellor launch what they term a call centre operation they would get the Debt Counsellor
deregistered. They said that they are currently investigating all call centre based debt counsellors
and will soon take action against them.
Once again the reasons were not very clear as to why but the threat certainly made the Debt
Counsellor change their mind about expanding on such a scale and they will now rather be
looking at other options out of concern that the NCR will go after them if they did expand.
Though the message is mixed the result is that the Debt Counsellor will not be helping hundreds
of consumers every month and will not be employing more staff . Is this a good thing? The
Debt Counsellor in question has an excellent reputation for helping consumers and dealing with
some tough cases and really working hard in the industry. These skills will now be limited to a
much smaller pool of consumers.
Is this the result the NCR actually want to achieve? Less consumers being helped. Debt
Counsellors with less clients? Perhaps a better question would be are the NCR’s concerns over
the complaints they have seen come from some consumers shading their view of any large Debt
Counselling firm.
In the Part 1 we looked at how larger debt counselling firms will get more complaints by
consumers simply because they have so many more consumers. Smaller firms have less clients
and thus, generally, get less complaints to the NCR.
COMMON CONSUMERS COMPLAINTS
The NCR recently have being trying to resolve many consumer complaints themselves. As more
people are entering debt review they are seeing more and more complaints. Though most debt
counselling firms have an internal complaints process many consumers do not talk to their Debt
Counsellor about these issues they prefer to talk to the NCR first. Here are some of the complaints
that the NCR have been getting :
Many consumers are being contacted by people (from a “call centre”) who try to promote the
debt review process. Later the NCR receive complaints from some of these same consumers
who have tried to access more credit only to find out that they are now flagged as being
under debt review. The consumers may not recall formally entering debt review. Many did
not sign anything or may be confused about what they did or didn’t agree to on the phone.
Some consumers complain to the NCR that they are not getting good service from their
debt counselling firm. Credit providers are still calling and pestering them. In some cases
they have had people come take their cars away even though they are under debt review.