CCCS no good????

Littlebluefairy

Hi everyone - I am a new poster but referred by someone wo thinks this site is fabulous!

Am in £24,500 debt over last 3 years (wedding, pregnancy and living day-to-day on a credit cards/store cards - BAD MOVE! :eek: ) and have tried CCCS twice.

1st time I paid 130.00 to my DMP but got nowhere with Barclays as they just kept charging and charging me. Plus I didn't declare everything I owed. I thought I could manage some of it myself - so in total we were paying 130.00 plus minimum charge on c/card and store cards. 2nd time, around the time our son was born, we realised we were really being stupid. They advised Bankruptcy and sent thru some paperwork for us.

For the last 3 months I have been telling my creditors that I am in the process of trying to find the money for the Bankruptcy Fee. We were all set to do this but then our MOT came in and wiped out our savings.

In despair, I rang another debt management company today. He suggested an IVA (5 years max debt free at 215.00 a month) and the last 10,000 will be written off. He said the CCCS were !!!!!!. Is this true?

I want this all to be over. To make it worse, I have just found out that we WON'T be getting the council house we thought we were on the list for as my partner earns "too much money to rent from council". How is scraping £1200 a month for a family of 3 (half of which goes on rent) too much!? It's nothing! We are always down to our fifty quid at the end of the month and even the CCCS said we weren't excessive spenders! We live in a bedsit! :mad:

Someone please, help me!

Littlebluefairy
xx

tattooed_lady

Hiya,

This Debt management company you spoke to, they wouldn't happen to be fee-charging would they? That would explain why they would call the CCCS cr*p. In my opinion they are brilliant and do an excellent FREE service. They also stipulate that you must declare ALL debts to them when you start or they can terminate the DMP at any time. I'd call them again. How long ago was bankruptcy suggested? Maybe they would recommend differently this time. There is also Payplan which is a free service but I don't know much about them I'm afraid.

Good luck.

Littlebluefairy

The bankruptcy was suggested in late August/early September. We had no residual income according to "Bob" who looks after my customer number. In fact, we were on a minus.
He said that no creditors would accept 50.00 to share between them and, as I've gone back to work now (and on no more money than I was on Maternity Pay) I've got nothing better to offer.

And yeah, it was a charging organisation!!!!

What is an IVA by the way?

super_mario_4

hi, i work in the collections department for a credit card company and i would definitely say CCCS! yes, they are only human and im sure some people will have storys of errors and mistakes, but they really good! all the other dmp companys out there are all about getting more money from you when your on your knees (financially). the company i work for has a strong working relationship with them and 9 times out of ten we accept the offer and freeze the interest

Fran

I agree with ruyareece's post re CCCS. Also it's best to stick with one company, once they have all your information it will cause you more confusion to swap to another and have to go through all your circumstances again. You do have to declare everything and also stick to any arrangements that are made, that is the best way to get the result you want.

Re council house - are you on your local Housing Association lists as they often have different rules to each other and to the council? That would seem the best way of improving your accommodation.

Jen_Jen_5

stick with cccs if you want a dmp.

an IVA will be no better for you than bankruptcy, in fact probably worse. an IVA is like a debt management plan but more formal and costs more. with bankruptcy all your debt will be gone once you pay the fee. Probably why suggested as they will refer you to their insolvency arm and get money off you that way (robbers!!)
EDIT: not that iva's are bad, just the fee paying debt management company who are advising you to make money for themselves, not necessarily the best option for you.

a few things to check, part of the cost of bankruptcy are court fees, are you exempt from these because of low income? if so this may bring the cost down, off the top of my head £120 is court fee.

you can also approach charities for help with the bankruptcy fee, you may need to access these with the help of your local cab. you should approach them to help you write the letters to creditors saying you are saving for bankruptcy. Perhaps offer £1 per month until you have the money.

have you claimed working tax credit and put all your income and expenditure details on here and i am sure you will get some suggestions that you may not have thought of yet for cutting back and getting the fee together.