Free Me Management

General information

About Free Me - Dawn & Ron Ries

Our Story

Many of our members and potential members have asked us about the story on how our company came to be, so I thought I'd share it with you!

Vision

Our long term vision is to enhance the community, whereby everyone's basic finance needs are met. To accomplish this in the short term we provide knowledge and training to the consumers. To effect long term consumer improvement, we work to increase awareness of the issues facing vulnerable consumers.

Mission

Our vision is for a healthy, compassionate, vibrant South Africa. Our mission is therefore to ensure the Community Benefit Sector has practical tools for accomplishing those visionary ends. We do this work by convening, engaging, mobilizing and supporting the sector, to ensure we all have the means to make South Africa an amazing place.

The Beginning

Our story began in 1992, when Ron was working as an assurance broker. We witnessed first-hand the explosive growth of the credit market and garnishee order industry. South Africans were buying more and more – when the cash wasn't there, they turned to credit and micro loans. We knew credit could be abused by consumers, but we didn't yet see it as our duty to help. Interestingly, one day a client came to see us, asking for help with his garnishee order. He had an income and means to pay off his debt, but needed help getting organized and constructing a specific plan. He realized that just like it's hard to lose weight without a diet plan or retire without an investment plan, it's quite difficult to get debt-free without a payment plan.

So we helped him build that payment plan. He had over a dozen debt accounts, some with multiple garnishee orders, so the math of what to pay when, was severely complicated. But after hours and hours of building a complex spreadsheet, we finally had a plan.

Intrigued by this exercise, we asked some of our assurance clients about their financial health. Across the board, they said their financial problem was debt. And surprisingly, just as with our client, they said their issue wasn't an inability to pay, but rather an inability to organize. This was an eye opener for us.

Those conversations with our clients helped us to decide to start Free Me, to be able to help South Africans get organized and pay off their debt. We realized we could build a great model that empowered borrowers to finally take control of their debt situation.

Discovery

Employers generally, are acutely aware of the impact of over-indebtedness on their employees and must realise that this phenomenon impacts on the workplace.
In the first instance, consumerism creates a myriad of wants as opposed to the needs of daily survival and secondly, there is an abundance of ‘easy money’ available, either in the form of reckless lending or credit facilities. Such facilities are either ‘in the system’ in the form of registered banks and accredited hire purchase facilities or outside the system as money lenders, commonly referred to as Loan Sharks.
People become entrapped in a debt cycle thus continuously under threat of repossession, legal action or worse, in the case of the Loan Shark. This unfortunate situation has the potential to impact significantly on productivity, namely:

 Distraction from work performance
 Stress-related illness
 Absenteeism
 A perception of being underpaid which may translate into:
o General disgruntlement – blaming the employer
o Unreasonable wage demands
o Theft and fraud

Employers are thus well advised to discover the depth and breadth of debt impact within their business and then to address this scourge through a well-considered approach. Free Me has positioned itself as an expert service provider in mitigation of debt; to help people to avoid the debt trap or to take positive steps in addressing it.
Free Me has designed a program called Credit Literacy which assists companies with their over indebted employees. The program is designed so that employees will understand their rights in the credit market. The program starts with senior management and HR and highlights the needs of the problems facing employees. The program assists the employees in the following way:

Training on Credit and Financial Literacy
 Budgeting
 National Credit Act
I. Reckless Credit
II. Prescribed debt
III. In duplum
IV. Types of Credit agreements
V. Interest rate and fees
 Voluntary arrangements with their credit providers:
 Administration orders
 Voluntary Sequestration
 What Is Debt Counselling
 What is a garnishee
 How to deal with Debt Collectors and Call Centres
 Credit life

Understanding Their Credit Status
 Credit Amnesty
 Challenge their status – less than 10% of consumers put in complaints about their credit status
 Get a free credit check once a year
 Credit Providers must advise why they have declined credit

Services we offer:

 Training HR on the dos and don’ts on Garnishee Orders
 Training staff on how to work with credit and
 Discussing solutions available if they over indebted?