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What is a credit bureau?

•       A credit bureau is a company that gathers information and updates each consumer’s credit history. A credit bureau creates a record of a consumer’s credit information indicating how the consumer manages his/her credit.

•       The credit bureau supplies these records to credit providers, such as banks, retailers and other credit providing companies.

•       The information indicates each consumer’s payment record.

•       It is also used to detect fraud, corruption or theft.

When I apply for credit from a credit provider, who decides whether or not I qualify for credit?

•       When you apply for credit, the credit provider uses information received from a credit bureau to assess your application.

•       When your credit record satisfies the standards of the credit provider, a decision to grant you credit is made by the credit provider.

•       It is the bank, retailer or credit provider that approves or rejects the credit application and not the credit bureau.

What does the Act do?

•       The Act stipulates that each credit bureau must register with the National Credit Regulator in order to conduct business legally;

•       It sets out the purposes for which consumer credit information may be used, and the companies to which the credit bureau may provide the information;

•       It sets out standards for data accuracy to ensure that information kept by a credit bureau on your record is always accurate;

•       It ensures that each consumer has the right to check his or her record, and that any mistakes are corrected.

Why you need to challenge your credit report

    Most of the time the information on the credit bureaus is incorrect.

•       Accounts balances on the Credit Bureaus are inflated

•       Accounts has reached Induplum - Despite any provision of the common law or a credit agreement to the contrary, the amounts contemplated in s 101(1)(b) to (g) that accrue during the time that a consumer is in default under the credit agreement may not, in aggregate, exceed the unpaid balance of the principal debt under that credit agreement as at the time that the default occurs. Once the amounts referred to in s101(1)(b) – (g) that accrue during the period of default, whether or not they are paid, equal in aggregate the unpaid balance of the principal debt at the time the default occurs, no further charges may be levied.

         Section 101 – Interest, initiation fee, service fee, credit insurance, default administration 

         charges, and collection costs.

•       Debt has prescribed- 3 YEAR PRESCRIPTION PERIOD APPLIES TO In short, according to the Prescription Act, if, in the past three years you have not made any payment towards settling a debt, acknowledged owing the debt in any way – including over the phone – agreed to pay it, or been summonsed in respect of it, it has prescribed, and you can raise this as a defense when asked to pay it. NOT ALL DEBT PRESCIBES IN THREE YEARS

•       Judgements are incorrect

•       Wrong credit scoring

•       And many more

Section NCA 70 (1)

•       In this section, “consumer credit information” means information concern-(a) a person’s credit history, including applications for credit, credit agreements to which the person is or has been a party, pattern of payment or default under any such credit agreements, debt re-arrangement in terms of this Act, incidence of enforcement actions with respect to any such credit agreement, the circumstances of termination of any such credit agreement, and related matters;

Questions

•       How does the Credit Bureaus know that the Handover amount to COLLECTION agency is correct. (Induplum,  Prescribed, Rule 42 of the NCA)

•       This will interfere with the consumers affordability

•       Section 40 and 41 of the CPA may apply

•       Section 72(c)(i)(ii) of the NCA

Section 70 (b) and (d)

•       (b) a person’s financial history, including the person’s past and current income, assets and debts, and other matters within the scope of that person’s financial means, prospects and obligations, as defined in section 78(3), and related matters;

•       (d) a person’s identity, including the person’s name, date of birth, identity number, marital status and family relationships, past and current addresses and other contact details, and related matters.

Questions

•       The income does not show on the Bureau nor the marital status.

•       Credit Providers using this as an excuse  when they do the affordability assessment.

•       Section 157 NCA- Applies

2 (c) and (h)and (i)

•       C) take reasonable steps to verify the accuracy of any consumer credit information reported to it;

•       H)not draw a negative inference about, or issue a negative assessment of, a person’s creditworthiness merely on the basis that the credit bureau has no consumer credit information concerning that person; and

•       I)not knowingly or negligently provide a report to any person containing inaccurate information

Questions

•       How does the bureaus verify the accuracy of the consumer information?

•       EAOs wrong Jurisdiction (Stellenbosch)

•       Incorrect interest and fees

•       Cession of debt and purchasing of books

•       Registered credit providers

•       Handover of debt to collecting agencies with inflating balances

•       Updating of the debt review statuses

Section 70 (5)

•       For the purpose of monitoring the consumer credit market to detect apparent patterns of reckless credit granting and over-indebtedness, researching the accessibility and use of credit by persons contemplated in section 13(a), and otherwise exercising its mandate to research consumer credit issues and to investigate and enforce compliance with this Act, the National Credit Regulator may-

•       (a) require any credit bureau to provide periodic synoptic reports of aggregate consumer credit information in the prescribed manner and form to the National Credit Regulator, but any such report must not identify any particular consumer or relate a particular consumer to any information so reported; and

•       (b) make further reasonable requests for information from a credit bureau related to the information contemplated in paragraph (a); and (c) analyse information provided to it under this section or section 69. the prescribed standards;

•       Sec 13. The National Credit Regulator is responsible to-(a) promote and support the development, where the need exists, of a fair, transparent, competitive, sustainable, responsible, efficient, effective and

•       (i) historically disadvantaged persons;

•       (ii) low income persons and communities; and

•       (iii) remote, isolated or low density populations and communities,

•       in a manner consistent with the purposes of this Act;

•       The bureau system won’t be able to assist in the first paragraph of sec 70(5) as the information they are receiving from the credit market is incorrect

Section 72(3)

•       (3) If a person has challenged the accuracy of information proposed to be reported to a credit bureau or to the national credit register, or held by a credit bureau or the national credit register, the credit provider, credit bureau or national credit register, as the case may be, must take reasonable steps to seek evidence in support of the challenged information, and within the prescribed time after the filing of the challenge must-

•       (a) provide a copy of any such credible evidence to the person who filed the

•       (b) remove the information, and all record of it, from its files, if it is unable to find credible evidence in support of the information, challenge, or subject to subsection (6).

•       (4) Within 20 business days after receiving a copy of evidence in terms of subsection (3)(a), the person who challenged the information held by a credit provider, credit bureau or national credit register may apply in the prescribed manner and form to the National Credit Regulator to investigate the disputed information as a complaint under section 136.

•       (5) A credit bureau or the National Credit Register may not report information that is challenged until the challenge has been resolved in terms of subsection (3)(a) or (b).

•       (6) On application by a credit provider, credit bureau or the National Credit Regulator, as the case may be, the Tribunal may make an order limiting the applicant’s obligations  to a consumer in terms of this section if the Tribunal is satisfied that the consumer’s-

•       (a) particular request or requirement is frivolous, unfounded or wholly unreasonable;

•       or (6) history and pattern of such requests or requirements are frivolous or vexatious.

•       (7) Failure by a credit bureau to comply with a notice issued in terms of section 55,  in relation to this section, is an offence.