Debtfree Magazine October 2016

As a professional it is hard when someone you work with
regularly basically says to you that they don’t trust you in your
professional capacity. This is how many Debt counsellors feel
about the recent demands of credit bureaus when the debt
Counsellor sends them notification that the consumer is no
longer under debt review and their debts are paid up.
What happens is when a Debt Counsellor send notification to the credit bureau
(as they must in terms of the National Credit Act [NCA]) the credit provider then
sends a return email saying that in order for them to update the...information [they]
require all paid up letters for the accounts reflecting the Clearance Certificates.
They go further to say that without such letters they will not update the info.
Why are credit bureaus doing this? Is it simply a case of not believing a Debt
Counsellor?
Credit Bureaus biggest clients are credit providers who want to check if consumers
are good payers and who else they owe money to. Thus the needs of credit providers
can sometimes be prioritised over others.
Many Debt Counsellors issue a clearance certificate when the consumer has paid
all their debt repayments in line with the debt restructuring Court Order. At the
moment though, credit providers and Debt Counsellors as well as the Payment
Distribution Agencies are fighting about this matter. Some Debt Counsellors say
the court order is the final word and if it says 20 payments of R100 then after 20
months the debt is done. The credit providers say that because they don’t capture
information at the same time as the Debt Counsellors and PDAs their balances
differ somewhat due to interest calculations. They thus almost always want a little
more money from the consumer at the end of the process to cover the difference.
This is called End Balance differences and has become a major issue in the industry.
Many credit providers feel that removing the info from the credit bureau (which
they could however query if they disagree) if it is simply paid in terms of the court
order, is not right. They worry that the consumer may then be able to get more