Re: ITV 1 Tonight, 'Too Posh to Pay' - your thoughts please

liferenewed · 20 January 2009 at 11:19PM

Hello folks,

In the depths of despair as so many of us are, we turn to the good people of this forum for advice and whether you believe in him or not, I Thank God for them. (And I havent been on that long!)

Tonight I watched this programme and the first character was described as a 'wheeler-dealer' univeristy educated chappy who had 50k of debts and had no intention of ever paying them. To rub salt in the wounds, the debt funded his Champagne lifestyle.....

Now I watched this and thought to myself, how can someone with that level of debt (unsecured it sounded like but cant be sure) be so unconcerned about it? Is he not afraid of the pressure from the CC companies, DCA's, CCJ's, Charging orders, losing his home, etc??

Like most, my wife and I are on a roller coaster ride with our finances at present and having just sent off the £1 token gesture letters last week, we are expecting the worst but hoping for the best. To see this guy on TV tonight made my blood boil, especially considering on BBC1 just 1 hour later, 'BUST' was on, following families who were losing their homes (apologies as I didnt watch this programme, so not sure of the full content).

Is this guy for real? Is it because his debt is all unsecured and perhaps he owns no home that he doesnt care?

Here we all are bricking it and in our personal case used the CC's to survive, to 'live', and yet is it a case of us all taking this brazen attitude and telling the Credit card companies where to go?

He even has unpaid parking tickets! - surely that is a bailif knocking if nothing else?

Any comments on this programme appreciated, particularly on this character and where his head is?

Take Care all,

Liferenewed.

dalip · 21 January 2009 at 1:32AM

Was working so never got chance to watch it. There are many out there like him(from what you have said) that give us bc a bad name.Fact of life i am afraid.

Good luck with those letters. Did some for OH a while ago and 3 accepted 1 did not so now on DMP.We shall see:rolleyes: .If you need any help. Come back and ask. We are not just for bc,although the title does make some wary of us:rotfl:

liferenewed · 21 January 2009 at 2:18AM

Thanks Dalip,

We paid the CC companies every penny we had in savings and earnings over the last 5 years, £70-80k in total and our original debt is just less than 70k. I feel sick that we didnt address this sooner, but with no money there is nothing we can do but face it.

CCCS suggested Bankrupcy was the only order, but we dont want to loose our home and thats too much of a risk at this stage. Im hoping the token offers help, but surely this is just buying some time? Do the CC companies tend to accept these offers until your circumstances change? what if the circumstances dont change for 5 years?

On current benefits we are at a shortfall, so no dmp at the moment. Hoping that will change in the next month with benefits review.

If we end up on a dmp, do most CC companies stick to the agreements or will we still end up being chased for final settlements or face CCJ and Charging orders?

Did you have to go on DMP because the one company didnt accept or did it work out cheaper/ better for you to do so?

Sorry for the change of topic, but we have so many questions floating around in our heads some only come to the fore every so often!

Thanks and take care.

dalip · 21 January 2009 at 9:19AM

liferenewed wrote: »

Thanks Dalip,

We paid the CC companies every penny we had in savings and earnings over the last 5 years, £70-80k in total and our original debt is just less than 70k. I feel sick that we didnt address this sooner, but with no money there is nothing we can do but face it.

CCCS suggested Bankrupcy was the only order, but we dont want to loose our home and thats too much of a risk at this stage.Is there any equity in your home? Im hoping the token offers help, but surely this is just buying some time?Yes Do the CC companies tend to accept these offers until your circumstances change?Our 3 that agreed gave us 6 months of £1 payments then said they would review what if the circumstances dont change for 5 years?Not got that far

On current benefits we are at a shortfall, so no dmp at the moment. Hoping that will change in the next month with benefits review.

If we end up on a dmp, do most CC companies stick to the agreements or will we still end up being chased for final settlements or face CCJ and Charging orders?May be different for you as you have a home i never.

Did you have to go on DMP because the one company didnt accept or did it work out cheaper/ better for you to do so?That one company said they would only freeze interest if we went through a third person. So we did the DMP and they have now sold our debt on:mad: ,so getting letters from a DCA

Sorry for the change of topic, but we have so many questions floating around in our heads some only come to the fore every so often!

Thanks and take care.

No worries. Thats what we are here for. Have you tried the DFW forum? We are two sister forums. They send people here and we send people there.lol

positivestep_2 · 21 January 2009 at 10:01AM

Originally Posted by liferenewed

Thanks Dalip,

We paid the CC companies every penny we had in savings and earnings over the last 5 years, £70-80k in total and our original debt is just less than 70k. I feel sick that we didnt address this sooner, but with no money there is nothing we can do but face it.

CCCS suggested Bankrupcy was the only order, but we dont want to loose our home and thats too much of a risk at this stage.If there is little or no equity in your home, you should be able to keep your home if you go bankrupt. If you do have equity, you may be able to get a family member or friend to buy beneficial interest.

Im hoping the token offers help, but surely this is just buying some time?Yes Do the CC companies tend to accept these offers until your circumstances change? The CC companies will accept token payments for a period of time, then review situation.

what if the circumstances dont change for 5 years? I got reviewed after 12 months and then most companies wanted me to increase payments.

On current benefits we are at a shortfall, so no dmp at the moment. Hoping that will change in the next month with benefits review.

If we end up on a dmp, do most CC companies stick to the agreements or will we still end up being chased for final settlements or face CCJ and Charging orders? Unfortunately you could end up with CCJs and Charging Orders if your payments do not increase to an acceptable level to them. I have 2 charging orders because after 18 months, I couldn't increase my payments.

Did you have to go on DMP because the one company didnt accept or did it work out cheaper/ better for you to do so? I think it's better to get a DMP through a third party. The interest on my credit cards were frozen for a period of time, then afterwards the interest kept rising and I ended up owing a lot more than what I started off with.

Sorry for the change of topic, but we have so many questions floating around in our heads some only come to the fore every so often!

Thanks and take care.

TotallyBroke · 21 January 2009 at 10:42AM

Hi post up your soa and you can get some wonderful advice.

https://www.makesenseofcards.com/soacalc.html

Someone soon will also be able on advise on the letters that you send along with your token payments.

People like him do make your blood boil but eventually he will have no credit available to him and he'll fall flat on his face. You, yourself atleast has a rope to help you out of the hole. It's just perserverance to able to grab hold of it and the energy to pull yourself out.

Good luck it will take time but you can do it with help

liferenewed · 21 January 2009 at 10:50AM

Thanks folks for your replies.

In terms of equity, we had three valuations done a few days ago.

One agent, one auction house/ agent and one quick sale company to get a balanced view.

Agent said put it up at £199k to get a sale of £190k in 12-16 weeks possibly, auction house said £165k for an immediate sale in auction and quick sale company said £165k also for a 7 day completion.

We owe £180k plus costs involved with getting out of the deal would be £6-8k, plus sale fees etc.

Are we safe on this level or is it a case that the OR will agree with the higher valuation, which lets face it is still only a guage as the agent hasnt got a clue?

I didnt think that once you were on a dmp that they could start charging interest again or start to hand out CCJ and charging orders? I mean without sounding ignorant, why struggle to pay them anything more if this is going to be the case, why not just go bankrupt asap?

Ill put our SOA up asap, its not pretty reading but at least we know where we stand.

Thanks again

dalip · 21 January 2009 at 11:03AM

BC is not a "get out of jail free card" there are a lot of after effects,so for many many people it is a last resort,after having explored/tried every other avenue.
My Oh has 12k of debt and is paying CCCS £70 a month. It will take him 13 yeas to pay off IF they freeze the interest for the whole time,which is very unlikely. One has not accepted our DMP,one has sold the debt on and as far as i know the other two have agreed.We shall see. Having gone bc myself i am not in any hurry to repeat the exerice with OH:o

Re: ITV 1 Tonight, 'Too Posh to Pay' - your thoughts please

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