DEBTBUSTERS

Too bad there is not an option to select 0 stars.

This is going to be a long review. For those who do not know, debt counselling is a process a person enters into when they are no longer able to manage their debt / pay their credit installments. The purpose of a debt counselling company is to negotiate with your credit providers for lower installments and interest rates, to work out a detailed plan of new installments such that you are able to manage your credit payments at manageable installments and no longer damage your credit record. These negotiated new installments are solidified by a court order to your credit providers. You are thus also through this process protected from any legal action that credit providers could otherwise take against you. Depending on the amount of debt you have, you can be in this process for a number of years. Following the determination of your new installments, you are issued a so-called “rehab” amount which is to be paid over to the debt counsellors on a monthly basis. The “rehab” amount is composed of all the newly negotiated installments on all your credit accounts – it is thus one installment which is then distributed to all your credit providers by the debt counsellors. Once all your credit obligations have been paid up, you are issued a clearance certificate – this means that the credit bureau receives the message that you are cleared of all credit obligations and essentially your credit record is cleared. So above is the process of debt counselling. What follows is my experience of this process with this particular company also addressing the manner in which the company blocks clients from contacting managers to escalate complaints. I have been under debt counselling for roughly around 8 years – I do not remember the exact time of entering into the process. In June 2018, I sold my flat and given the fact that I made some capital profit from the sale, I was in a position to pay off all my outstanding credit debt. This process involves obtaining the outstanding balances on all your accounts, and then making one payment which is then paid over by the debt counsellors to the credit provider in order to pay up all your outstanding accounts. So I went through this process in July 2018. I received my quote of outstanding balances, paid the outstanding amount. Thereafter I received an e-mail on the 2nd August 2018, declaring me debt free, and explaining the process of credit clearance that would follow. I was told in this e-mail that the process of credit clearance may take around 4 weeks. Well after 4 weeks have passed, I have not received any updates as to the process of my credit clearance, and sent a number of e-mails requesting feedback on the process. I never received a response on any of my e-mails. Come November, I received an e-mail from the company threatening to terminate their services due to non-cooperation on my part. As part of this e-mail, it states that a notice of this – essentially your non-cooperation with the process – would be issued to all your credit providers. Naturally I reacted strongly to this threat with a return e-mail, after which I received an apology e-mail from the company, stating that my case is currently being dealt with by the debt settlement and credit clearance departments. So all of a sudden, in November, the credit clearance department contacts me saying that there are still outstanding balances on two accounts. The one account was terminated from the debt review arrangement (by no fault of my own, because I religiously paid my rehab amounts every single month – neither I nor anyone else could have possibly done this better or been more cooperative in this regard). The termination of the debt review arrangement with a credit provider can only be the result of payments not being made or some other glitch in the system, which, as I said, can be no fault of my own as I paid all my rehab amounts. Something thus went wrong in the management of the account, which is part of the exact service meant to be provided by debt counsellors – they are meant to pick up such discrepancies and address it. Clearly this was not done. In addition to the afore-mentioned account, suddenly in November – more than THREE MONTHS after I had been declared debt free and was already meant to be credit cleared, it comes up that there is still an outstanding balance on a certain bank’s credit card, this information was provided by the bank and was in conflict with the debt counsellors system which had indicated that the particular account had been paid up. After much back and forth and investigation, it came to light that this particular bank had never restructured my account as per the court order issued, and the remaining balance on the card is thus due to this. Again, the failure of the bank to restructure the account should have been picked up – way way way earlier, by the debt counsellors and addressed by them – this is partly what they are there for. For Debtbusters, a client pays R342 per month for their services as well as an additional fee for the distribution of one's rehab payments.) Now this whole issue raises a number of questions and deductions: 1) Why had the outstanding credit card NOT been picked up by the debt settlement department when I was paying off all my accounts, and how could it possibly have happened that I was declared debt free, in writing, if there were still hanging accounts? 2) I was declared debt free on the 2nd August. This issue of having an outstanding balance on a credit card came up in November. It is only logical to deduce from this that between the beginning of August into November, more than a 3-month period, my case had not been touched or looked at or further managed by the debt settlement / clearance departments. That in itself is shocking enough. What is currently happening is that the specific credit card is being back dated in order to restructure it as per the court order, and the closing balance is yet to be received from the bank. In the meantime, I received the threat of termination e-mail once again. Again I reacted to it and was issued an apology email by the company. Yesterday I received the very same email for the THIRD time. By this time I am at the end of my rope and have had enough. I do not feel I can deal with it any longer, as the threat of damaging my credit record (rather than protecting it as is once again the debt counsellor’s supposed aim) by issuing a notice to them of my non-cooperation in making payments is just too much to fathom – given I am the victim and completely innocent party and far from having been uncooperative, I have been completely the opposite. This morning I wanted to address this issue with a manger. I phoned Debtbusters asking to speak to a manager. The consultants who first take your call at the customer services department try to block you from speaking to a manager by insisting that you tell them what the issue is. Today I simply insisted to speak to a manager, I was then put on hold with the understanding that I would be put through to a manager. I held the line for over 20 minutes of my limited airtime, only to be put through to someone who is NOT a manager. I was told to “ignore” the emails threatening to terminate their services and communicate this to my credit providers. How can one “ignore” these messages? How do I know that it will not be enacted if there is such poor communication between different departments of the company? How is it fair that I need to receive these emails, completely destroying my peace of mind and given I suffer from a mood disorder, had contributed to more than one relapse into depressive mood episodes? How is it fathomable that I had been declared debt free and told that all my accounts are paid up in August, only to hear in November - more than THREE months later, that there is a hanging account – AGAIN – through no fault of my own? How is it acceptable that clients are blocked from communicating with managers? How is it acceptable to be kept on the line for more than 20 minutes only to be put through to someone who is NOT a manager? In addition to this, the company functions in such a way that you can send e-mails only to generalized e-mail address es serving each department of the company– thus you are unable to contact directly the specific person who has been dealing with your case. In this way communications get lost. This is my review of Debtbusters. I am completely and utterly at the end of my rope, my mental health and peace of mind is being destroyed with every day that this drags on. When choosing a debt counselling company, make therefore your own choice as to whether you would choose this one.