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VETERAN DMPers! Tell us newbies your Story
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TotallyBrassic
Posts: 102 Forumite
I am a newbie to DMP. Will begin mine on Nov 1st.
I trawl dfw for any tales regarding DMP, but often find they are buried within other threads. DMP mutual support thread is excellent :T , but what about if we have a thread here just for veterans?
Here are some of the questions I wanted to ask.
Was yours a success or failure?
Are you relieved to have taken this route or would you have done it all differently?
Name and shame the companies who didn't play ball.
Name and praise the companies who did.
I really feel this would be extremely useful to all of us about to or having just begun a DMP.
Please help, and if I have stepped on anyones toes, or there is aready a thread like this I apologise, I couldn't find it.:D
x
I trawl dfw for any tales regarding DMP, but often find they are buried within other threads. DMP mutual support thread is excellent :T , but what about if we have a thread here just for veterans?
Here are some of the questions I wanted to ask.
Was yours a success or failure?
Are you relieved to have taken this route or would you have done it all differently?
Name and shame the companies who didn't play ball.
Name and praise the companies who did.
I really feel this would be extremely useful to all of us about to or having just begun a DMP.
Please help, and if I have stepped on anyones toes, or there is aready a thread like this I apologise, I couldn't find it.:D
x


DMP mutual support thread member 242
LBM>>:eek: Sept 08 £28357:eek:
>>Jan2010 £25265
>>June2010 £23995
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Comments
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I'm not sure what constitutes a veteran but I ve been on my DMP for nearly 2 years now and it was the best call I ever made when I phoned CCCS after months of stress. It was tough to start with creditors phoning all the time and letters every day but after my first payment things began to quieten down and now I only get the odd letter just telling me what my balance is. bad people to deal with were definitely Lloyds although I did get 16K out of them for mis selling my loan and all PPI back. BOS have thier in house DCA blair oliver scott and they were lovely. all my debts have been passed to DCAs apart from black horse. all interest has stopped and I am slowly seeing my debts go down. it's such a relief although I still have 6 years to go these last 2 have gone very quickly.Good luck on yours.0
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I'm also coming up to 2 years, it was the best thing I could have done, but I should have done it a year earlier.
My plan is with Payplan, and I like the fact that I can access the details online, I can see how much I've paid and how much is left - with this I can see that I am eating in to my debt.
Most banks were good to deal with, worst are NatWest. I had 12k on a loan which they still add interest to. They now have it at 16k - but as I plan to offer them a settlement (they have already offered 50% of 16k) I'm not too worried.
NatWest are the only ones that have talked about getting a charging order, the others seem OK that I am paying them back - although I did increase my payment at the end of year one, which Payplan said keeps them from the door a bit more.
Other than that, the DMP has taken loads of pressure away, I've been able to learn from mistakes and I'm paying them back. I got in to debt because of my own stupidity, but I've found that I'm much stronger for the experience. I did get a CCJ last April, so from that perspective the DMP hasn't done much to my already poor credit rating - but its not like I want credit anyway - so I hope to be debt free in five years time and then improve my credit rating (without getting in to my old bad habits).Unsecured debt 2008 c £45,000
Current unsecured debt February 2016 £1,734.85
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Mine wasn't really a success. I tried to set my own up but the bank just completly ignored any letter I sent so I went to CCCS. They recommended bankruptcy but I wanted to try the DMP. They then set it all up for me. After a year I started to realize that my debts were just growing and I was struggling to make the payments. I have now decided to take CCCS's original advice and go bankrupt. It was successful in a way because it took the pressure off me and gave me time to think but it failed because partly because my bank was uncooperative and partly because I couldn't really afford to pay anything towards it. I think I would have been better off taking the advice to go bankrupt in the first place and would recommend to anyone who gets this advice to seriosly consider it and only try a DMP if you have a very good reason not to go bankrupt.
All my debts are with Halifax and the weird thing is different departments are hard or easy to deal with. For my loan they were fine about it froze the interest and everything straight away then sent the debt to Blair, Oliver and Scott after a few months. I agree with HHH B,S&O are really easy to deal with. For my credit card they agreed after a bit of delaying that they would freeze the interest but after 18 months they started piling charges and interest on again and said it wouldn't be sent to B,S & O for 6months adding £1000 to my debt. The next month I spoke to one guy who froze the interest and charges on it again without much discussion and have just got a default notice but haven't heard anything since. For my overdraft however they refuse to reply to my letters (say they never received them even if I send them recorded post) and will not discuss it with me in the branch or over the phone its really weird. I guess the moral of this story is try to get Halifax to pass your debts to Blair, Oliver and Scott as quickly as possible then you'll be more successful."You are entitled to your own opinions but not your own facts" - Arthur Schlesinger
Proud to be have dealt with my debtDebt Free Sept 2012
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Hi, I'm about 18 months into mine with CCCS.
The only ones still charging interest are First Direct - but this is 6.5% so lower than it was. They were first to accept and seemed really nice (but see below comments).
No real problems at all with Mint other than they don't reply to any letters at all after 4 months they issued a default and stopped interest. GE Money refused initially then accepted, stopped interest after about 3 months on the DMP and later handed over to CL finance who are great - they just send statements saying carry on paying what you are.
I've just had to reduce my payments due to increased costs and no payrises for 3 years and the only ones that seem to have a problem are First Direct (the only ones still getting interest) who want me to sign up to a 12 months loan where the last payment will be the entire balance - more than £5k - as if :rolleyes: - so ignoring that one. They also wrote to say they would increase interest to 16%. Waiting to see what happens next but hoping for a default notice and no more interest
The only thing I wish I'd done differently....???? I wish I'd started the DMP months before, probably even years before when the debt was lower and I had less responsibilities (OH and stepkids) and could have paid it off quicker.working on clearing the clutterDo I want the stuff or the space?0 -
Thanks so much for your replies, this was what I wanted, if you are 12 months or more into a dmp, then you are in a fair position to reflect on it.
It is really useful to have names of good/bad creditors up here too....gives us an idea of what to expect.
I must say so far so good with what you guys have said!
xxLife is full of lessons...wish I had been awake in the one entitled 'Do you really need that stuff?'
DMP mutual support thread member 242
LBM>>:eek: Sept 08 £28357:eek:
>>Jan2010 £25265
>>June2010 £239950 -
TotallyBrassic wrote: »It is really useful to have names of good/bad creditors up here too....gives us an idea of what to expect.
I must say so far so good with what you guys have said!
xx
The one thing to remember is that it takes a few months before they will actually stop interest so your debt may seem to increase a bit during that time (as you aren't making full payments and interest is still going on). So don't panic, just go with the flow for a whileworking on clearing the clutterDo I want the stuff or the space?0 -
Mmm, newlywed, I know this will happen! tbh I was flapping a bit, because current account o/d is one of my debts and i fully expect them to continue trying to take their own loan and cc payment out!!! so inevitable debt will rise..it does worry me:(
being in here helps tho )
xLife is full of lessons...wish I had been awake in the one entitled 'Do you really need that stuff?'
DMP mutual support thread member 242
LBM>>:eek: Sept 08 £28357:eek:
>>Jan2010 £25265
>>June2010 £239950 -
bump..
I am hoping there are at least some 12 month plus DMPers out there!!!!
lolLife is full of lessons...wish I had been awake in the one entitled 'Do you really need that stuff?'
DMP mutual support thread member 242
LBM>>:eek: Sept 08 £28357:eek:
>>Jan2010 £25265
>>June2010 £239950 -
12 months into DMP.
Positives- now manage to get a decent nights sleep
sometimes even forget about debt for a day or two
debt is no longer the only thing that I think about:j
negatives- none really,should have done it a year sooner
all companies have agreed to the plan, the first month was the worst,
best companies initially were EGG, Next and Cap one, however all the others soon stopped interest and charges[ except HBOS took the longest at 7 months]
life is now much better and I can honestly say it was one of the best decisions we ever took.0 -
I started my dmp 2 and a half years ago with payplan. After reading some of the stories on here I realise I've actually been quite lucky as the only call I got initially was from Blair, Oliver and Scott (on behalf of Bank of Scotland) and I just told them Payplan were handling everything and they were fine. I think I might have had one letter (can't remember from which creditor) which I just forwarded to Payplan and other than that I had no dealings with any of my creditors.
First Direct are still charging interest and I get a statement from them every month. Also Egg (credit card and loan with them) send me online statements every month but I no longer have the details I need to be able to log in and check the balances (and I really don't want to ring them for this information in case they hassle me). Tesco Finance were fine from the outset and I've never heard anything from them.
I've still got another 3 years to go but as climbingoutoftheabyss says, with Payplan I can see the balance online and see the amounts slowly going down, which helps keep me positive. I now owe less than £20000:j having started out at £36000 (wow, I think that's the first time I've ever admitted on here how much debt I had). I have another review of my finances tomorrow and I'm going to offer to pay a bit more so that I can hopefully pay the debts off earlier.
One thing I would say is keep logging into the MSE Forums. If it hadn't been for the advice on here I would never have known about a dmp. I have learnt so much from the people on here - not just this forum but the os forum too. My only regret is that I didn't find this website earlier.
Good luck with your dmp.Proud To Be Dealing With My Debts - DFW Nerd 323
Debt free date - January 2012
Mortgage free date - November 2013
Cross stitch cafe challenge member no 160
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