I once had a client visit me and he was sure that his debt review process was finished. He said he paid all of his accounts. My client got retrenched halfway through the debt review process, after which he got a good job and paid off all his debt.
When he decided to buy another car, the dealership revealed that his finance couldn’t be approved because he was still under debt review.
Even after my client explained to the dealership that all of his debt was paid off, the dealership noted that they are not allowed to give any finance until the credit bureau flag which says you are under debt review has been removed.
This is exactly what the law says, so the dealership is not in the wrong here.
How does this happen?
Many people often get phone calls from “debt counselling firms” and during this phone call, the “firm” convinces you to give your details to the caller. Sometimes, the callers also give their banking details in order to go under debt review.
Afterwards, they were debited, sometimes successfully and sometimes the debit order was returned, but they discover they are registered under debt review.
Another thing that can happen is that people go into debt counselling and somewhere along the way they cannot pay any more. This can be due to tough financial times, or losing a job. When things are going better or they get another job, they make a plan with their credit providers, pay them back and think their debt review is over.
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But, this is not the case. You need to get a debt review clearance certificate form a debt counsellor to get your name off the credit bureau.
There have been many court cases about this lately, and the final judgement is that once you are in debt review, you need to pay up all your debt, and then get a clearance certificate to get finished with debt review.
You don’t have to finish paying your house, but all the other debt needs to be paid up for a clearance certificate to be issued.
Another situation that we come across a lot lately is where people are under debt review, and they are struggling to communicate with their debt counsellor, or they think that things are not going correctly and they are not getting answers to their questions from their debt counsellor. At RD Debt Counselling, we investigate cases like this to see if things are going correctly or not.
So if you are sitting there wondering what you can do to get your credit record back and want to get your debt review status cleared from the credit bureau, contact us at RD Debt Counselling. We are registered debt counsellors with over 10 years’ experience. Let us help you become debt free!
