Please help my mum

Cullumpster

My mums just said to me today that she's in a lot of debt bless her and she's scared to tell my step dad.

She's in a bit of a state, apprently the bank has called her today to tell her that the minimum payment for her C/C can not be paid because she's up to her limit on her overdraft and she's also up to her limit on her c/c's

She can't apply for anything else because she's tried and has been refused!

All in all she said it's about 20K in debt.

I've looked on the National debtline website, and i've told her to call her c/c companies to explain the situation and see if they can change her interest rate or freeze it.

Any comments from you guys would be gratefully received.

I've also posted this on the Credit card thread but i thought you guys would be able to help as well. :'(

Debt_Free_Chick

Can you get her to call the National Debtline? They may take on her case and therefore deal with the CC companies on her behalf. Normally, where you have a Debt Management Plan (DMP) with an organisation like National Debtline, PayPlan or CCCS, the CC companies back off - they deal with your DMP company.

This would at least save her from the stress of dealing with more "harrassing" phonecalls. On that note, she should insist that the CC companies only deal with her in writing. That should also stop the phone calls, but in many cases they don't listen and carry on phoning anyway. It's a horrible way to deal with an already stressful situation.

A DMP also means that the DMP company would try to agree pro-rata payments to all her creditors and also try to get them to freeze any interest payments. You can try to do this yourself, but the CC companies really take more notice of the DMP companies.

As for DMP companies, only use the ones mentioned

https://www.nationaldebtline.co.uk
https://www.cccs.co.uk
https://www.payplan.co.uk

They are free - others make a charge and this simply diverts money away from paying your debts and into the DMP company coffers  :o

I've just realised that I've used the term "you" - I mean your mum, of course.

Finally .... she ought to think about telling her husband. It's going to be pretty difficult to hide all this from him, especially once the phonecalls and letters start. And as he is no doubt financially linked to your mum, he may start to have difficulties with credit himself, if your mum's credit record is adversely affected. Far better that she tells him rather than risk him finding out from another source. I know that might be difficult, but in a marriage, partners can get pretty upset anyway if one party "has a secret".

If your mum is not financially savvy (mine isn't!) and likely to be spooked by horrible letters & calls from official-sounding people, she might be better on the DMP route. At least they'll take all the flack for her.

HTH