Credit card wont help us, What to do?

fuzzgun19 · 10 October 2005 at 10:37AM

Hi,
Myself and my partner have a number of debts that we have come to arrangements with each company.
All of the companies have been helpful except one of them, and they refuse to reduce the interest.
we can currently afford to pay £30 per month, but the interest is about £29 each month, so we arent getting anywhere with it.

My question is, would it be possible to get another card/loan (balance transfer possibly) for this debt(currently £1340) that would be lower interest?

I'm not even sure if we would be accepted for any credit because of our credit history. We havent applied for credit for a few years as we've been trying to pay our current debt off.

I just feel we arent getting anywhere with this card, and we cant afford to pay any more on it.

rprinter · 10 October 2005 at 12:19PM

Hi fuzz

My thoughts, whilst you wait for the many more experienced guys on here, are that you're credit file is probably marked with 'under arrangement' or suchlike which'll make getting a low % or any new CC difficult.

If you default on the one that's not playing ball, ie not pay it, they'll pass it on (sell it on) to a collection agency. At that stage interest will (I'm pretty sure) be frozen and you can make your own monthly payment offer to the collection agency.

At least this way you know any payments will go towards paying the capital part of the debt back, not just revolving yet more interest.

fuzzgun19 · 10 October 2005 at 12:31PM

Thanks for that. The card is already with a collection agency (NDR ltd), but they wont help. If i did apply for credit to pay it off, and was refused would that make our credit file worse?

Robert_Sterling_3 · 10 October 2005 at 12:37PM

I think it unlikely that you will get further credit.

rprinter · 10 October 2005 at 12:44PM

so its with a collection agency who are charging you interest? I don't get it. I mean, if you defaulted and it then went from the Agency to County Court (which would involve an extra but one-off cost) interest would then stop. You could make an offer to pay the court based on yr circumstances.

OK you'd get a CCJ but yr credit history is shot anyway and I would hope you wouldn't look to go about repairing your history until this present load of debt is paid off.

rprinter · 10 October 2005 at 12:47PM

Either that or your £1340 debt which you're paying £30 a month and £29 is going in interest will cost you £40,200 and take over 110 years to pay off, if you continue with this arrangement, if I understand it correctly.

Somerset · 10 October 2005 at 12:51PM

rprinter wrote:

so its with a collection agency who are charging you interest? I don't get it. I mean, if you defaulted and it then went from the Agency to County Court (which would involve an extra but one-off cost) interest would then stop. You could make an offer to pay the court based on yr circumstances.

OK you'd get a CCJ but yr credit history is shot anyway and I would hope you wouldn't look to go about repairing your history until this present load of debt is paid off.

Sounds like the DCA isn't interested in getting a CCJ yet, just wants to rack up the debt first. It also sounds like they think they'll get lots of money from the OP ie that he/she is capable of paying ... and paying.... and paying....

black-saturn · 10 October 2005 at 1:01PM

The way I got over that was by paying just the minimum amount on all the other cards and as much as I could on the card with the high interest. Then whenever I got some extra money such as for my birthday, christmas or from ebay I used to pay that off it too. Then that one gets paid off earlier which is better as it's the one costing you the most money.

file_wizzard · 10 October 2005 at 1:11PM

fuzzgun19 wrote:

Thanks for that. The card is already with a collection agency (NDR ltd), but they wont help. If i did apply for credit to pay it off, and was refused would that make our credit file worse?

I think the first thing you need to clarify from NDR is has the debt been assigned to them, or are they collecting on the lenders behalf?

if the debt is marked as defaulted from the original lender, and has been "sold" or assigned to NDR then the interest changes are questionable to say the least.

Your action should be as follows;

i) Write to NDR request that they confirm if they are collecting the account on the lenders behalf ( unlikely) or if the debt has been legally assigned to them, if it is the latter then they should provide you with a true and certified copy of the dead of assignment.

ii) If the debt has not been correctly assigned then you need to negotiate with the original lender and find out why the DCA is still adding interest onto a defaulted debt ( this is not unheard of / but is now frowned upon by the office of fair trading )

iii) Get hold of copy’s of all of your credit files and see how each account is marked at present i.e "Default" " arrangement to pay" Ect. this will give you a better understanding of who now "owns" which debt.

iv) although I would never normally advise this you may be as well just stop making payments and letting the DCA attempt to take court action unless they agree to a more realistic and fair repayment proposal,.

it is very unlikely they will progress court action, and even if they do in this instance I feel you could potentially have a good case to present as the charges currently being levied to the account are unfair.

I also concur with the others that if you have defaulted on debts already you have little chance of obtaining further credit to consolidate these debts, however this is always a bad Idea anyway!!

Your best bet is to contact Payplan / CCCS and see what they can suggest for you

rprinter · 10 October 2005 at 1:19PM

file_wizzard wrote:

iv) although I would never normally advise this you may be as well just stop making payments and letting the DCA attempt to take court action unless they agree to a more realistic and fair repayment proposal,.

it is very unlikely they will progress court action, and even if they do in this instance I feel you could potentially have a good case to present as the charges currently being levied to the account are unfair.

Yes. Beware from the sound of it this agency is one of the more aggressive and they will attempt to hassle you on the phone. Make it clear from your letter that you will only deal with this in writing. If they hassle you by phone just refuse to speak to them, explain you've written to them and will only deal in writing.

From the sounds of it if they persuade you to keep the payment/interest as it is they're gonna make a lot of money out of you and they may try and bully you into keeping it this way.

fuzzgun19 · 10 October 2005 at 1:35PM

file_wizzard, I've PM'd you about Writing.

Credit card wont help us, What to do?

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