OMBUD PUTS MONEY BACK INTO CONSUMERS’ POCKETS IN TOUGH ECONOMIC TIMES Credit users get back more than R15m

Credit Ombud Nicky Lala Mohan says there was a big increase in the number of consumers helped by his office last year. reports

CREDIT Ombud Nicky Lala Mohan was upbeat when he released his office’s annual report yesterday, which was themed around hope. And rightly so: his office was celebrating giving back more than R15 million to consumers, which was a dramatic up-tick on the previous year.

“In line with giving hope to consumers, the achievement that we are most proud of is the more than R15.5m (an increase of 45.85%) that we put back into consumers’ pockets in these difficult financial times. This is turning hope into reality,” says Lala Mohan. “This figure is calculated by adding all the amounts where consumers overpaid or where we found some breach of the law which entitled consumers to a refund or recalculation of their amounts owed.”

Lala Mohan says the office’s call centre recorded 18 072 complaints and queries (up 26%), out of 35 162 calls fielded. The ombud’s SMS line was central to its success last year, having received 11 246 SMSes from the public.

“We can see the impact of this project every time we appear on a television or radio show. We will find a couple of hundred SMSes in our inbox, sometimes immediately, which proves that many consumers prefer this method of making contact with us,” he says.

Disputes opened for investigation were up too, totalling 4 508, which was an increase of 9.34%. A total of 4 662 disputes were closed in the year, which was an increase of 5.43%.

The top three most common cases dealt with by his office were invalid listings, prescription of debt and incorrect statements of account, which, he says, was often deliberate. Lala Mohan says credit providers and debt collectors often withhold statements to hide their costs: “By withholding a statement, consumers don’t get to see what the collection charges are. You can’t see what you’re being charged for. In terms of the National Credit

Act, consumers are entitled to view