There are literally hundreds of organisations in South Africa that offer complaints services to provide assistance with resolving consumer complaints and grievances.
getclosure! refers to them as "
remedy providers" and categorises each as a "
champion", an "
enforcer" or a "
facilitator". In some instances, a remedy provider might fall into more than one of these categories.
Champions are organisations that pursue complaints on behalf of customers. The National Consumer Forum is one example. Well-known consumer journalist, Wendy Knowler, is another example.
Enforcers are organisations that have power conferred by legislation to impose decisions that are binding on customers and their suppliers. Examples include the Consumer Court and regulators such as the
National Credit Regulator. Another example would be the
Ombudsman established in terms of the Financial Advisors and Intermediary Services Act.
Facilitators are organisations that provide services to assist the resolution of customers' complaints against certain suppliers but that do not have powers conferred by legislation. Examples include industry based ombudsmen such as the
Press Ombudsman and in-house ombudsmen such as the Mail&Guardian Ombudsman. Another example is
SATSA, a voluntary association that undertakes to investigate complaints against its members.
You can browse through our list of
remedy providers to find an organisation appropriate to the complaint that you are trying to resolve.
Facilitators Champions Enforcers Please contact us with information about any other organisations or websites that you think we should identify on getclosure!
To ensure that the information we publish is accurate, we ask each remedy provider to check its listing before being placed on getclosure! We cannot guarantee the accuracy of the information for each remedy provider and do appreciate being contacted if any listing needs to be updated or corrected.