THE office of the credit ombud is here to protect people’s hard-earned money.
Delivering his annual report, Credit Ombud Nicky Lala-Mohan said last year was largely aimed at improving the office’s productivity.
“The achievement that we are most proud of is the more than R10,7 million that we put back into people’s pockets – an increase of 40,2%.
“We got this amount by adding together money from where people overpaid, where the law entitled them to a refund or recalculated what they owed. Most of the amounts were relatively small, which makes the total amount that much more remarkable,” he said.
The office resolved 69,4% of the disputes in which the people’s favour in their complaints were fully or partially upheld.
Lala-Mohan said their outreach activities and educational programmes over the past year reached 17 492 people countrywide.
“We actively work to create more awareness among all people of their rights in relation to credit and to promote the work of our office.
“The office started a mission to address some of the many financial and credit challenges that our communities face.
‘To help, we partnered with institutions like the Community Work Programme managed by Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs, the taxi owners and drivers associations, the office of the Gauteng premier, and the KZN Department of Economic Development and Tourism,” said Lala-Mohan.
In 2015, the ombud introduced an SMS number – 44786 – that people can contact. It proved to be a big help.
“Last year, the office received 4 866 SMSes.
“Whenever a person makes use of the SMS message service, the office will respond by phoning them. That way we save them the cost of a call,” he added.
