Recently, the National Credit Regulator (NCR) managed to shut down one such operation where the scammer was doing all sorts of illegal fraudulent stuff to try to deliver on their get out of debt review promises.
Some of the things they were doing was faking court orders, faking letters from banks saying the debt is paid and uploading false information to the NCR’s database and on to the credit bureaus.
All these crimes were committed to try and trick the system into clearing people’s records from the credit bureaus.
Fortunately, the NCR found the scammer out and took the matter to the National Consumer Tribunal and asked for a fine (R25 000), a total audit of all the consumers effected so they can get their money back and stopping the person from operating and being able to scam consumers in the future.
It is unclear, at this point, if any criminal charges have yet been brought by any of the banks or consumers effected and if the scammer will face jail time. We hope this matter is pursued to the full extent of the law.
Read more about this story in the upcoming issue of Debtfree Magazine