MSD Consulting is a Cape Town debt counselling firm, offering debt review, consolidation and settlement. Its website is at msd-consulting.co.za, with the hyphen. The unhyphenated msdconsulting.co.za is a parked domain with no site, and msd.co.za is the pharmaceutical company MSD, which is unrelated.
Official contact channels
- Telephone: 021 697 0939
- Email: [email protected]
- Location: Cape Town. The firm publishes no street address on its site
- Hours as displayed on the site: Monday to Friday, 5:00 to 17:00. The opening figure looks like a typing slip for 8:00, so do not count on being answered before normal office hours
- The site menu links to a contact page at /contact-us/ that currently returns a 404 error, so use the number or the mailbox
Verify the counsellor, not the company name
- Debt review may only be provided by a debt counsellor registered with the National Credit Regulator, and every registered counsellor has an NCRDC number
- Counsellors are registered as individuals, not as companies. The NCR register matches the counsellor personal name, not the trading name, so searching a firm name there proves nothing either way
- A worked example: searching the register for a trading name that definitely belongs to a registered counsellor returns Not Registered, because the register only matches the person
- So ask MSD Consulting for the name of the registered debt counsellor handling your file and their NCRDC number, then search that person name on the NCR register at ncr.org.za
- Any firm that will not give you a counsellor name and NCRDC number is not one to sign with
What debt review commits you to
- Your debts are restructured into one monthly payment, made through a registered payment distribution agency rather than to the counsellor personally
- You are protected from legal action on the included debts, but you may not take new credit until you finish and get a clearance certificate
- Your credit record is flagged as under debt review for the duration
- Debt counselling fees are regulated by the NCR. Get the full fee schedule in writing before you sign anything
Complaints
- Misconduct by a debt counsellor goes to the National Credit Regulator on 0860 627 627 or [email protected]
- A dispute about the underlying credit agreement goes to the National Credit Ombud on 0861 662 837
- Never pay by voucher or gift card, and never hand over a bank card, PIN or SASSA card to anyone arranging debt review
Sources
- MSD Consulting official website, for the telephone number, mailbox, Cape Town location, displayed operating hours and the debt counselling, consolidation and settlement services
- Live check of the MSD Consulting site, which shows the linked contact page returning a 404, and of msdconsulting.co.za, which is a registrar parking page
- National Credit Regulator register of registered debt counsellors, including the control search that established the register matches personal names rather than trading names
- National Credit Regulator and National Credit Ombud published contact details