If I could pick 0 stars I would...

<p>I have been under debt review, using the debt counselor "Debt Rescue" for the past 2 years.</p> <p>Recently I had the opportunity to settle and pay up many of my accounts administered by them.</p> <p>However, contrary to what they advertise and advise you during sign-up, dealing with the company or querying absolutely anything regarding the status of your payments is an absolute nightmare from a customer service perspective.</p> <p>I have both called and emailed them on their customer support address: ********** as well as copied the address ********** with not a single response or acknowledgement of my email for the best part of 3 weeks now!</p> <p>Phoning them up directly is just as inefficient as the staff are useless to say the least.. They slur and demonstrate ignorance and apathy in their dealings with clients, making no effort to assist or go the extra mile. One call operator even attempted to use an excuse regarding their email server being down and that they had no knowledge of my emails from over a week ago?! Makes one wonder when it was that they discovered they were not receiving emails? They also claimed to have no alternate means of receiving email when I asked if they had direct addresses I could send my request to...</p> <p> </p> <p>If only there customer service was as good as their sign-up and onboarding of new clients, which is where the focus seems to undoubtedbly be in the case of Debt Rescue.</p> <p>Debt Rescue also insist on using a Payments distribution agent called Hyphen PDA who also charge me in excess of R300 a month to distribute payments to my creditors. In addition they charge their own monthly management fee for the duration of your debt review payments which is in excess of R450.</p> <p>In total, a client who is already under considerable financial strain and burden, who has app**** for relief, is now being ripped for more than R700 monthly as part of his consolidated repayments as set out in their terms. This information is not readily shared or communicated during the sign-up process.</p> <p> </p> <p>However I would still choose to be under debt review had the monthly management and distribution costs been of any benefit to me as a client, which it has now clearly proven not to be.</p> <p>Absolutely appauling treatment of clients and I am quite sure I am not the only one who has had dealings with their customer service desk or prescribed support email address.</p> <p>Should they not get their act together within the next 2 days, I will be forced to take this up with the Debt Review ombudsman for assistance.</p>