Why are we not being protected from scammers?

I WAS approached by a debt reviewer in 2015. When I asked how they got my numbers, they said they checked on the national credit database.

At the time, I didn’t know about debt review. I asked them how it worked, and they said it was to help people get a bit of cash and also to cut some extra interest that we enter into when making credit.

I signed up with them, and they debited the money at the end of the month. Then they called me a few days later, claiming not to have received the money.

I contacted my bank, asking whether it was possible that the debit had not gone through, although it showed on my side that it had. The bank said it was not and showed me the proof of payment.

These people called me again, making the same claim. They suggested I reverse the payment and deposit it to another account number that did not even have the company’s name.

When I queried it, they said the account belonged to the owner of the company.

So I deposited the money – which was R3 000 – to that account. I still have proof of that.

Two days later, another woman called me saying they hadn’t got the money. I told her someone from her company had already called me, told me I need to reverse and re-deposit into another account.

She said the person used to work with them, but had left. That’s when I realised I was being taken for a ride here, and I asked her how she got hold of my details if she wasn’t working there anymore, and she didn’t know.

I told them I needed a refund and that I wanted to be removed from debt review, but they said they couldn’t as I needed to pay all my creditors in full for that to happen.

That’s how I got myself into such a mess. I cannot get credit anywhere because I am under debt review. As a result I got myself into more trouble as I needed R1 000 and I did the following: I was looking for a short-term loan and I found Loan Connector SA on the internet. They claim that black-listed people are welcome, with no credit check.

They are now demanding that I pay them a huge amount of money for what they claim were “paralegal” services rendered to me.

They are busy harassing me with messages and are now saying that they’re getting a summons issued. What can I do? Or, perhaps, what can be done so that others won’t fall for this scam. The government should be protecting us from them.

Such advertising should be banned and they must be stopped from operating and taking people’s money.