Debt Counselors
When pay-day is met with more fear than relief because of the wave of creditors banging on your door, it might be time to seek the help of a good debt counselor. Helping you to plan a budget, negotiate better rates with your creditors and extend your repayment terms, debt counselors can mean the difference between bankruptcy and solvency.
According to the National Credit Regulator (NCR) of South Africa, people who are experiencing over-indebtedness can seek the help of a Debt Counselor for help on how to get themselves out of the debt trap.
All debt counselors must be registered with the NCR and serve to assist those who cannot make their debt payments by providing them with budget advice, support and mediation with credit providers. Such counselors provide consumers with information they need to resolve their credit problems so as to avoid falling into debt again.
Debt counselors, according to the NCR, are not allowed to be part of organisations that provide credit, debt collection agencies and credit bureaus. They can be approached directly or consumers can be referred to counselors by creditors or a magistrates court.
In an effort to prevent counselors further exploiting consumers, the NCR has a greed to guidelines proposed by the Debt Counselors’ Association of South Africa (DCASA) which sets out maximum fees debt counselors are allowed to charge for services.
Individuals who earn less than R2,500 have their debt counseling fees subsidized by the NCR.