Consumer Protection

[MadJan]

A person takes out a cellphone contract...payments are all up to date until he loses his job, he defaults for obvious reasons but is unable to get out of the contract. He gets a part time job that pays him R1400 a month....his account gets debited for half his salary....he informs the service provider of his situation, he starts paying R100 per month but obviously even this amount is a helluva lot to pay when you earn R1400 a month. He defaults again due to this, gets handed over for the arrears of R1737 and has been informed that he has to pay an excess of R5000!!!!
He should not have defaulted the second time around but what does one do when one has to provide for a family doing odd bits of work here and there for this kind of salary???
The consumer protection act only came along way after this incident....is there anything he can do? This is like pushing someone to suicide!!!!
Any advice?

[MadJan]

By the way i have seen his salary advice, the amount he is in arrears of and what he was told by the attorneys that he was handed over to....just to make sure i have the story correct and that he was not lying.

[Dave A]

Maybe he should have immediately applied for debt counselling in terms of the National Credit Act?

[Sparks]

They were notified of his situation & waited for the eventuallity of using it for financial gain. If it were me I would send them a cheque for R10.00 every month. If they are not happy with it they can say it in writing then they really get nothing.

[Justloadit]

They were notified of his situation & waited for the eventuallity of using it for financial gain. If it were me I would send them a cheque for R10.00 every month. If they are not happy with it they can say it in writing then they really get nothing.

Now that the banks are charging for a cheque deposit, it would be interesting