One man's comments on everything


Monday, November 11, 2013

Applying the methodology of Bullying(BBBP)

BBBP stands for Big Brother's Bullying Practices(s)

What I am referring to here is not the everyday bully that is described in Wikipedia as being the one that bully your child at school.  Everyone knows someone who knows someone that has either been physically or mentally bullied at school or work.  There are all sorts of suggestions out there that will give you indications of how to handle these situations. This is not the place for that.

Today I am on about a much more sinister and methodically planned and executed bullying tactic being applied by South African Banks.  When I make the statement  of whether they have a formal or informal division that devise and execute these actions it begins to sound like an exercise in conspiracy theories, doesn't it.

Look at the following scenario and decide for yourself :
In South Africa we have various acts of parliament that was recently promulgated and are in full force.  I refer to the National credit act that prescribe to banks ,among'st others,   how to interact with consumers and what is allowed and what is not.

The other major breakthrough was the enactment of the Consumer affairs act which again prescribe the relationship between supplier and customer (provider and consumer) and the rights of both parties are firmly entrenched.

The last act that needs to be mentioned here is the Financial intelligence act or FICA for short. This act has only two major issues at hand. The first is to force credit providers and banks to "know their client" Know who he is, and where he lives and what he does with his money.  The second is to curb money laundering.  It has thus nothing to do with a clients' chosen domicilium address which can be changed at will by the client and there is no obligation on the side of the client to prove anything about this address - he merely has to choose it and of course tell the financial institution involved that he has chosen this address.

Any law or act is only effective if is policed and applied by all parties concerned.  Corporate South Africa will always see how far they can push the boundaries to suit their causes and if this pushing of boundaries is not regulated properly that law will become useless at the end of the day (or sooner ) (This is where the bullying starts)

Take for instance the process a credit provider must follow if a debtor defaults on his commitments.  Please note that this process is prescribed irrespective of the reasons for the default. Amongst others it prescribes a notice to be delivered to the distressed debtor (preferably at his domicilium address ) giving him options as to how to handle the situation (It does not prescribe to the creditor that he merely send a notice via any means to the debtor in the hope that the debtor actually receive the notice.)    The act of actually receiving such a notice (or any legal document for that matter )by the debtor has been confirmed in no uncertain terms by various court judgments against creditors.

This action is then also a prerequisite for any court action that might be instituted against the said debtor. However in the past contracts contained clauses like " It will be assumed to have been delivered within X days of posting"  The NCA now effectively outlaws this principle.  

BBBP nr 1 :    Ignore the NCA and send off the notice with no tracing system in place to monitor receipt.
BBBP nr 2 :    Irrespective of the above issue summons on the debtor (Not at his Domicilium address - he
                       might just get the summons in time to defend the action.  Look for the oldest address on
                       record and use that.)
BBBP Nr 3 :   Irrespective of  court judgments against us or similar institutions just go ahead and issue
                       notices and summonses not conforming to the law as the (poor) client will not know the
                       difference.
BBBP nr 4.     Make use of attorneys in far off places so as to confuse the client.
BBBP nr 5.     Irrespective of the fact that a client might have a home loan on a property try and get an
                       attachment order using BBBP nr 2.for some other debt he might have with us.. The client
                       will be none the wiser and we the BBB will have full control over the asset.
BBBP nr 6.     Always keep the client out of the loop - he will not intervene with court proceedings - he
                       does not have the money, the inclination or the savvy to go up against us  BBB's.


SELA  - for and on behalf of all BBBP's out there !





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