Full and final settlement help thread

19rusty66

Hi Sunny days...
I'm with Pay Plan...so far they have been helpful...how did you find them when the settlement team got involved?
I'm just about in a position, with the help of family, to make offers....any advice would be helpful

DBB_22

19rusty66 wrote: »

Hi Sunny days...
I'm with Pay Plan...so far they have been helpful...how did you find them when the settlement team got involved?
I'm just about in a position, with the help of family, to make offers....any advice would be helpful

I'm in exactly the same position - been in a DMP with Spectrum/Money Village for 5 and a half years. Got debt dwon from £38k to £8.5k and I want to draw the curtain on this whole sad chapter of my life with the help of family and friends.

Any advice on making F&Fs would be truly appreicated and any advice on the long term, consequences on credit file would be a tip-top bonus!

onamissionEU

I would just like to post an update on my current situation!

I had three credit card debts totalling around GBP 12k and after around a year of defaulting and negotiation with DCA's have managed to clear each of these debts for around 40% of their value.
I am now debt free, own my cars and have cash in the bank. Never again will I go down the road of debt/ruin.
To those of you still battling away, there is light at the end of the tunnel - be smart and remember; they can not take from you what you don't have. Debt is modern slavery - clear it by hook or crook and stay clear of it! Good luck to you all.

DBB_22... long term concequences of !!!!!!... If you have been defaulted (it is very unlikely any cerditor will look at partial settlements before defaulting you) the damage is already done. Once you have a default or CCJ on your file 95% of lenders will not touch you until the default drops off you file (takes 6 years). In the first year of default 99.9% will not touch you. A partially settled default is pretty much as bad a an unsettled default in the first years.
This means that you have not a lot to lose in trying to clear your debt for the least amount of cash! Good luck!

sunnydaysahead_2

Hi,
Sorry for the late reply. I found the settlement team ok to deal with at Payplan, and helpful. Although I did find that dealing with our creditors ourself was a better approach. As we could explain that the funds where limited for the settlement offers and we did explain to each creditor that if 1 creditor would not accept then we would have to continue on our DMP. Although this was very stressful we found it worked in our favour !!! We did feel that Payplan maybe wanted us just to pay a few creditors with settlement offers and then continue with the DMP. As this was what they suggested. Maybe this is how they like to make it work so they can continue to take Cover My Life Payment etc. This was just the feeling we had. Good luck with your settlement offers. If you need any advice please ask.

DBB_22

onamission & sunnydays c- thanks and congratulations in pulling yourself from the mire!

Did you have a set amount that you made all your creditors aware of? What I mean is that I might have access to around £4-5k to pay off an overall debt of £8k shared among 4 creditors.

Do I tell them all I've got £4k and explain that the offers have been made uising a pro rata calculation on how much I owe to each credit agains the amount I've got.

I'm in a DMP with Moneyvillage and they are a joke - I'm convinced they are more interested in me continuing to pay them rather than helping me get out of debt! Therefore I'm not hopeful they'll get the very best deal for me...

...onamission - one of my defaults drops off in November. I'll still owe approx £1k. Effectively the default has gone right? So the ball is in my court - kind of?!

SusieT

Firstly I would scrap the DMP with moneyvillage as you can get it for free with CCCS or Payplan. Secondly you should be able to get quite low settlements and should be able to have money left from the lump sum if you want to settle low. I have recently had a settlement at just under 25% of the debt so if you start by offering around 20-25% you should get some takers. I know people say to start at 50% but its possible to get lower if thats what you want.

DBB_22

Thanks SusieT,

I'm not really that concerned about having cash left over from my lump sum. I'm more concerned about how my credit files will look after the settlement.

Also, I'm in a weird position because I've got 3 defaulted accounts and two of the defaults 'expire' in Nov and Jan. So if I wasn't to pay another bean to them from today would they 'disappear' from my file on the scheduled dates and how would that show as opposed to me settling them before they expire?

Ah, so close to the end but still so difficult. I only want to become a 'normal' person (in the eyes of the lenders) again!

sunnydaysahead_2

Hi DBB_22,
We did tell Payplan that we had a total amount to offer this being 26k to all our creditors. When we phoned each of our creditors we did not mention figures. We just worked with the 30% figure. One expereience I would like to mention is that Payplan told us one of our creditors would not accept any settlement offer. We phoned the creditor direct explained our situation, the amount owed was around 13k we made an settlement offer of 7k and it was accepted. That was such a good feeling considering Payplan said no offer would be accepted. So please please do contact creditors and explain your situation and then if they agree take the contact name, settlement offer figure and then contact your DMP provider to do the rest. Can you imagine if we had listened to Payplan, we would still be on a DMP. Good luck with your settlement offers.

onamissionEU

Hi DBB,

I did not have any sort of DMP - I just let some debts default in order to "barter" reduced settlements as I have left the UK for good and have no more need for credit. In this case I started offering settlements of 25% to start with and worked my way up. I did not tell each creditor how much I had in total (I could have paid the full amounts but decided to play the system).
I simply kept paying 1 pound per month until my creditors came to my proposed settlement amounts. I got them all to 40%. I could have held out for more but just wanted to get on with it!

In your case, as your debts are old, the will likely settle for the 25-35% mark. They will probably be happy to get some sort of settlement! Any why pay more than you have to!!

You say your defaults are about to drop off your credit file? This does NOT mean you don't have to pay them, but they will no longer count against you when applying for credit! Once all of your defaults have "dropped off" - paid or unpaid - you shuld become a "normal" person again - assuming you dont have other bad recent history!

SO: get out of your pay plan, and start talking to creditors individually and offer them a settlement of 20% or original value and see what they say! Good luck

timetogetrid2012

Hi There,

Wondered if any one had tips for me, i am currently in a DMP and have been for 4 year however i have only paid off 5k of my 33 debt leaving me with £28k and 5 debtors i have recently been offered 12k from my parents to finally say good riddens to my debts how ever all this week i have been fighting tooth and nail to get !!!!!! deals.
2 of the debtors will except 50% which is great however i need all 5 to agree to my pro-rata offers otherwise i cant do it, the thing is that the companys that have accepted 50% said thats only on till the end of the month after that they will not be able to accept but the others will simply not play ball and prefer to get tiny amount and wait 13 years to get what i owe in full .
The ones playing hardbull are Paragon finance and Barclaycard!!

Any Tips guys?