Everyone goes through periods in their life where they hit financial hardship, and these times can lead to credit issues and poor credit scores – even a lack of payment on your debts or loans. In South Africa, this can lead to getting you blacklisted, which essentially takes away your ability to get a loan, open a line of credit, or even get a cell phone contract, which requires a credit check and credit card for payments. Chances are that you didn’t mean to have these financial troubles or to become blacklisted, but now that it is a reality, the repercussions can severely cripple your ability to get back on your feet by making it impossible to even have a basic luxury like a cell phone.

So what can you do? While many people just had to go back to sticking with their home phone, or borrowing someone else’s phone, there have been some changes in the way that some major South African cell phone companies do business. Some of these cell phone companies actually took the time to think about the plight of some people situation, and decided they would offer a special program to those who are blacklisted, providing with a contract for a cell phone that can make a big difference on the path to getting back to financial security and success. While you can’t have all of the perks that come along with a normal cell phone contract, you do have the ability to stay in touch and have a cell phone of your very own.

And what do you do to get one of these cell phone contracts if you are blacklisted? On many of the cell phone companies’ websites there is a feature where you can fill out your financial and personal information and it provides you with options and cost information that you need to know in order to get the cell phone contract that you need. When it comes to getting this contract, there are normally two options that you can go with.

The first option is allows you to negate the need for a contract entirely, and this means that you would actually go out and purchase a prepaid cell phone, buying the amount of minutes that you need as you use them, making sure that you only spend the minutes you have the actual money to spend. It’s in essence a debit card, but a cell phone, and you can only use it when you know you have the funds, in comparison to the less stable cell phone with a contract, which acts more as a credit card. The other option that you have is to go to the cell phone companies that make contracts for people who are blacklisted, and get a billing plan from them. When you go with this billing plan, it is more similar to a credit card, and you pay each month for the plan, and the cell phone company works with you individually on pricing for your plan.