Harrassment - Please be informed about your RIGHTS for PRESCRIBED DEBT

<p>This company together with their sister company: CSS Credit Solution Services has been contacting me with regards an outstanding FNB Credit Card Account. The manner they have been contacting me and also dealing with this matter, I found totally unsrupulous as well as that they are harrasing me.</p> <p> </p> <p>Please be informed about your RIGHTS should you experience the same treatment from these 2 companies.</p> <p> </p> <p>Herewith some very valuable information with regards your RIGHTS as well as which authority to contact for assistance, should these 2 companies use their ************ manner in trying to recover any outstanding debt from you:</p> <p> </p> <p>After how many years is debt written off in South Africa?</p> <p>After how many years is debt written off? While not completely written off, debt that has been left for over three years can be seen as “prescribed”. Prescribed debt is old debt that has not been acknowledged or paid within three years.</p> <p>While there are ways for creditors to still claim this debt, the amendments to the National Credit Act in March 2015 make it almost impossible for debt collectors to get back this expired debt. These changes made it so that if a consumer or creditor had not acknowledged a certain debt for more than three consecutive years, verbally or in writing, the debt was considered prescribed and had effectively expired. Before however, it was up to the consumer to know this as a defense when dealing with collectors, many collectors would be hoping to trick the consumer into paying the expired debt, but now there is more enforcement in telling consumers all they need to know, informing them of their rights.</p> <p>However if any payments or promises of payments have been made in that time, the debt is still valid and the consumer is liable for it. Often collectors will try and find a way to trick you into acknowledging the debt during communications, if you play into their hand and admit to knowing about it then they can hold you responsible.</p> <p>Every consumer should know when their debt has prescribed. A debt prescribes when:</p> <p>A credit provider has not claimed payment, sent a letter of demand or issued summons<br />A consumer has not made any payments/acknowledged the debt directly or indirectly for the time periods specified below:<br />Personal loans, credit cards, retail accounts and vehicle loans: three years<br />Mortgage loans, debts by court orders and money owed to the SA Revenue Service: 30 years<br />This change offers a helping hand to consumers, who until now were unaware of what prescribed debt was. Often collectors would let the debt sit, gaining interest over a long period of time, before chasing down the debtors when the amount is much more that what it should have been.</p> <p>If a credit provider or debt collector is demanding payment for a prescribed debt, challenge them and report them to the Council for Debt Collectors.</p> <p> </p>