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Debt Counsellor Going Through A Tough Time Gets A Surprise

Debt Counsellors are by nature people-centric. They deal with individual cases and hear the stories behind every application. The deal not just with the facts and figures but also the emotions and stresses that consumers are going through, something that often does not readily translate onto papers and emails to credit providers. This is not to say that credit providers do not think of their clients as people with normal lives and stresses. In fact, the best credit providers are those who realise this and make plans to meet the needs of their clients best.

Debt review is often one excellent way that credit providers care for their clients. They do not run debt review (the courts do) but they cooperate with the process and readily make plans for their clients while they are going through tough times.

The relationship between Debt Counsellor and credit provider can however get complicated. Many times these two parties find themselves at odds over the exact best way to resolve a consumer’s debt. Increasingly however there have been great efforts by both sides to get to know and understand each other’s viewpoints more clearly. This has helped both parties to see each other as people too. This was evidenced by a recent story from a Cape Town Debt Counsellor who has been having some health issues. Here is what he told us about what happened to him:

“It was something that you always hear about but never for one second believe that it could happen to you” 

The last few months was not the easiest in my live. Having planned a trip right around South Africa, we had to change plans last minute and cancel everything after what was supposed to be a routine visit to the doctor turned into a diagnoses of cancer.

It was something that you always hear about but never for one second believe that it could happen to you as well. Treatment turned out to be hell and my eating patterns had a drastic change to basically eating almost nothing. It was… tough to say the least. Nausea became an everyday part of my life and the taste of food seemed to disappear. Apart from the texture of the food I could have just as well been eating bread rather than meat or fish. It got so bad that I lost 27 kilograms during my treatment.

Fortunately, during this tough time support from family, fellow Debt Counsellors and friends came in from all over the world. Time went by and my treatments eventually came to an end with favourable results.

delivery-parcel-2Then came a big and rather pleasant surprise. Recently my doorbell rang and a courier service guy was standing at the gate with a parcel for me. I hadn’t ordered anything and was not expecting anything but it was clearly addressed to me. I opened it to find a variety of tasty nuts, sweets and biltong in the parcel. It is great to have my sense of taste back. Now even more confused as to who this was from and why it had come I found a small card attached to the parcel as well. Here is what it said:

“We wish you a speedy recovery. All of the best Standard Bank Debt Review”

It really touched me. How does a person say thank you for such unexpected kindness?  I do not know other words than just a simple Thank You Standard Bank Debt Review.

The story of this Debt Counsellor and this credit provider remind all of us that though we are colleagues and occasionally sit on opposite sides of an issue we are just people first.