Appalling treatment by Wesbank

I’ve had a vehicle finance account with Wesbank for 72 months now. Throughout this period, I’ve never defaulted on my repayments. My employer shut down operations in March 2020 as a result of the COVID 19 lockdown, severely impacting my earnings. Realising that I am getting into a situation where I will not be able to honour my instalment repayments, in September, I reached out to Wesbank advising that our company is only likely to resume operations in December 2020, at which time I will be able to afford to pay the instalment on my account. Whilst I expected the deferral of the payment of the instalment until after December 2020, Wesbank insisted that they will only consider making a payment arrangement with me if I agreed to pay 50% of my monthly instalment for end September, end October and end November and the balance kept in an arrears account. During this period, I paid the 50% of the instalment each month as per the payment arrangement.

Whilst I acknowledge the resultant arrears in the account, I am extremely disappointed that Wesbank has proceeded to hand over the account to a debt collector without engaging with me regarding the settlement of the arrears. I have honoured my agreement with Wesbank for 72 months, have financed many of my personal vehicles with Wesbank before, have never defaulted on my repayments even once and now being subjected to the harassment of debt collectors without the courtesy of a discussion and/or notification has left a bad taste in my mouth.