Published on MSN on 12 May 2010
84. 160,000 More consumers fall into debt arrears
Major concern over consumers debt problems still loom, according to the latest figures released in the Credit Bureau monitor of Q4 last year.
The report revealed that 10.75 million South African consumers are in arrears, an increase of 160 000 from the last quarter.
Luke Hirst, MD of Debt experts Debtbusters says ‘These numbers are still a great concern. We need to make the South African consumer aware that there are options available to them. The deeper they bury their heads in the sand, the deeper the problem becomes. With interest rates coming down we should be seeing this figure getting better, but over 78,000 consumer moved into 3 plus months in arrears in the last quarter alone.’
The good news is that more consumers seem to be taking an active role by requesting their credit report from the credit bureaus. Every consumer has the right to a free credit report each year and the number in the last year requesting this has increased by over 100% to 76,017.
Hirst continues, ‘Educating consumers is the key to this debt epidemic. We at Debtbusters have committed ourselves to educating consumers on their rights as well as responsibilities; an essential key to this is consumers understanding what their rights are and that when they have problem with their debts, there are solutions that can help them. ‘
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