After months of being hounded by debt collectors for a debt she knew nothing about, Thembi* discovered that two cars had been bought in her name.
"We found it [the fraudulent credit agreements] on her credit report. That's always where we start," says Magauta Mphahlele, the chief executive of National Debt Mediation Association (NDMA).
Thembi works for Harmony Gold, which uses the services of the NDMA to help its 21000 employees with their debt problems.
If finding herself the victim of identity theft wasn't bad enough, Thembi then had to deal with the fact that it was her boyfriend who had stolen her identity document and copies of her payslips to commit the fraud.
How he managed to con Absa and Wesbank, two of the country's biggest vehicle financiers, is another story.
Mphahlele says Thembi knew that her boyfriend had acquired two cars, and even gave her one as a gift. Little did she know that they had been purchased in her name.
When she received a summons from Wesbank's attorneys, Thembi asked the NDMA for help.
Mphahlele says a preliminary investigation by NDMA found that the signatures on various documents, including the application for credit, did not match Thembi's signature on the power of attorney she signed with the NDMA.
More alarming was that the credit agreement did not bear any signatures at all.
As a result of the NDMA's intervention, Wesbank has cleared Thembi's credit report of any trace of the fraudulent debt in her name and instituted a claim against her boyfriend.
Absa has stopped pursuing the consumer for debt granted fraudulently in her name.
Mphahlele says that the most common problems they find on credit reports relate to judgments that the consumer knows nothing of, or accounts that have been paid up, yet reflect as outstanding.
"This is especially prevalent where the debt was handed over to attorneys, or sold to attorneys, because attorneys don't update the credit bureaus."
She says that while there are some credit providers that are slack about giving information to the bureaus, attorneys are the biggest culprits.
And they are not obliged to update the bureaus in the same way that credit providers are, which she says is a gap in the National Credit Act.
* Not her real name
Woman cleared of debt given illegally in her name
After months of being hounded by debt collectors for a debt she knew nothing about, Thembi* discovered that two cars had been bought in her name.
"We found it [the fraudulent credit agreements] on her credit report. That's always where we start," says Magauta Mphahlele, the chief executive of National Debt Mediation Association (NDMA).
Thembi works for Harmony Gold, which uses the services of the NDMA to help its 21000 employees with their debt problems.
If finding herself the victim of identity theft wasn't bad enough, Thembi then had to deal with the fact that it was her boyfriend who had stolen her identity document and copies of her payslips to commit the fraud.
How he managed to con Absa and Wesbank, two of the country's biggest vehicle financiers, is another story.
Mphahlele says Thembi knew that her boyfriend had acquired two cars, and even gave her one as a gift. Little did she know that they had been purchased in her name.
When she received a summons from Wesbank's attorneys, Thembi asked the NDMA for help.
Mphahlele says a preliminary investigation by NDMA found that the signatures on various documents, including the application for credit, did not match Thembi's signature on the power of attorney she signed with the NDMA.
More alarming was that the credit agreement did not bear any signatures at all.
As a result of the NDMA's intervention, Wesbank has cleared Thembi's credit report of any trace of the fraudulent debt in her name and instituted a claim against her boyfriend.
Absa has stopped pursuing the consumer for debt granted fraudulently in her name.
Mphahlele says that the most common problems they find on credit reports relate to judgments that the consumer knows nothing of, or accounts that have been paid up, yet reflect as outstanding.
"This is especially prevalent where the debt was handed over to attorneys, or sold to attorneys, because attorneys don't update the credit bureaus."
She says that while there are some credit providers that are slack about giving information to the bureaus, attorneys are the biggest culprits.
And they are not obliged to update the bureaus in the same way that credit providers are, which she says is a gap in the National Credit Act.
* Not her real name
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