Ask a CCCS counsellor a question

bluecandy5

CWSG wrote: »

Yet another fool here who has managed to get herself into serious debt with not a great deal to show for it!

I've been on the CCCS website and filled in the debt remedy form and plan to phone for an appointment tomorrow to discuss a DMP.

I'm still not entirely clear how it all works in terms of what money you are left to live on. I know that you have to demonstrate to your creditors that you are paying all that you can but does that mean that living on a shoestring for the next X years? Am prepared to do whatever it takes to become debt free (looking into getting a second job at the moment but not too hopeful...) but I just want to have the full picture of what it entails.

Can anyone on a DMP tell me how it works in practical terms? At the moment I don't go out anyway and have cut out nearly every 'frivolity' so life isn't a great deal of fun but hoping it will be again one day!

Thanks in advance for any help!

Hey just to let you know, im on a dmp with cccs and out of my wages i have varying amounts due to commission at work but have around £200 -£250 a month for me, just me, no bills/dmp/ etc. so you dont have to be on shoesstring for however long your dmp is for.

Keep your head up and things will be ok in the end. xx

CCCS_Sue

NicciJB wrote: »

I have two high interest credit cards and one store card, with a total debt of £800. I was declared bankrupt in 2004 and discharged in 2005.

I was recently offered a "pre-approved" low interest credit card at my bank and so went ahead with the application thinking I could balance transfer my existing credit cards (0%).

I was told the card was approved and it would arrive in the post within 5-7 days.
However, I subsequently received a decline via letter for the supposed "pre-approved" credit card.

I now want to clear the cards and am bamboozled by the options available. I want to do this as cost effectively as possible and now the bank credit card is no longer an option, I am left with the following:

1) Upgrading my account to “Additions” paying £14 a month account fee for a £1400 overdraft. The first £300 of overdraft is interest fee. The rest is charged at 12.9%

2) Not upgrading my account to “Additions” – hence no account fee, and having a standard £1375 overdraft charged at 19.9%

3) Taking out a loan of £1375 or £1400 over three years at a rate of 22.9%

Help!! What would be the best for me in terms of paying interest? My instinct was to go for a loan but the bank clerk was trying to convince me that an overdraft would be more cost effective.

Hi nicciJB and thank you for your email

Whichever is the cheapest option would make sense, but be careful you are not getting yourself deeper into debt.
Another option would be to pay off the highest interest card first by paying over the minimum amount to clear it as soon as possible and then concentrating on the others in order of highest interest.

Regards
CCCS

Georgieporgie_3

hi all

i am new to the site so hello to one and all!

my problem is as follows -

i was offered a job in Nov 2006 which included a company car, however a condition of the job offer was due to the fact i had seven points on my driving license, i could have the job but would not be allowed into the company car scheme, and i would have to supply my own car.

so i took the job, and got a hire car temporarily until i managed to get a proper car long term. i approached my bank for a car loan, but they declined me on the grounds of my borrowing patterns with them and i also already had a 6k bank loan outstanding with them. i then turned to my financial advisor who had arranged my mortgage a few years earlier, he attempted to get unsecured loans on my behalf, but said my poor credit rating meant that he could not get one accepted.

eventually he advised the final solution was to go for a secured loan on my house. this he told me would depend on wether there was enough equity in the property to cover the required loan amount. so we got it valued by a few different surveyors and a few different figures came out. the best one was 35k so we sent that to the secured loan firm [Endeavor] who approved a loan of 35k.

i then used that money to pay off my bank loan [6k], buy a car [27k] and do a few improvements in the property with the change.

now the problem is that i am now eligible to join the company car scheme as the points on my license have dropped off, but i need to sell the car to do this otherwise i shall be paying for the Endeavor loan and also the company car costs. also the car has depreciated and is only worth about 17k now which means even if it does sell in the current climate, there is still a balance on the Endeavor loan of 30k, meaning i shall be stuck with a 13k deficit!

also the equity in the house is dropping further and further, so i dont know if a re-mortgage is possible or not or advisable due to the loan secured on it etc

if i keep the car the running costs will rocket as the warrantry ends soon and it is also time intensive & costly running after the car upkeep when the company car scheme is all taken care of by a management firm who i just call and everything is taken care of. also the car will keep depreciating as it gets older


please help as i cant think of a way to minimise my losses

Geo

CWSG

bluecandy5 wrote: »

Hey just to let you know, im on a dmp with cccs and out of my wages i have varying amounts due to commission at work but have around £200 -£250 a month for me, just me, no bills/dmp/ etc. so you dont have to be on shoesstring for however long your dmp is for.

Keep your head up and things will be ok in the end. xx

Thank you so much for replying, that's reassuring!

retsbed

Hi MSE'ers,

I hope this is posted in the right place...please feel free to move it Mr. Mod

In March 2006 my partner entered into an IVA with Debt Free Direct (DFD). Included in the IVA was our joint account that we held with Natwest with an OD of £650.

On 1st April '09 I received a letter from Natwest (addressed to me only) demanding £1038.68 for the joint account. I contacted them immediatley and informed them of the above. The person I spoke to asked me to get DFD to call them. I contacted DFD and they asked me to send in the letter and they would deal with it. DFD never contacted Natwest and now the debt has been handed to Triton Credit Services.

Upon receiving the letter from Triton I contacted them (Triton & DFD) immediately and they both tell me that because I am not in the IVA I am responsible for the entire debt of the joint account . Neither of us were aware of this as for the last three years my partner has duly paid the IVA.

Please could someone shed some light on this matter as my income has been included in the voluntary arrangement and we really don't have the money to pay them especially as we thought it was all taken care of. I have tried explaining this to Triton but they are not budging. The last person I spoke to asked me to fax in my partner's IVA documents to prove the debt was included - I have done this earlier today and thought I would post on here to get some advice before they call me again.

I hope this doesn't sound too long winded and please accept my apologies if it is

Thank you all in advance :beer:

*informer*

Hi,

I have some personal loans and loans from friends and family as well as OD. I also have HP for my car. I have 2 credit cards.

I am paying of my payments each month and clearing my credit card but I find by the end of the month they are both maxed out again. So really, I am living on credit.

I have worked it all out on paper and I need £6200 to clear the lot. I did also price around and discovered if I took loan for this amount and pay over 2 years, I would have everything paid off sooner than I would on my current agreements.

The problem is I have been refused a loan. I know I can make the payments and I have been given veral assurances that my job is safe for at least the next 2 years as it is doing well. Can you please advise trustworthy companies that help with debt consoladition of loans.

Thanks in advance.

Silas_greenback

Hello, This is my first post on here so please forgive me if I ramble a bit.

In March of this year my wife was made redundant and we began to struggle paying our minimum payments on our debts (1 joint unsecured loan, 2 credit cards for my wife, 1 for me) and then in May I was also made redundant. We're both now in reciept of income based JSA and awaiting our housing bens and council tax bens to be sorted (at the moment we are paying our rent still from the redundancy package I got)

We have contacted the CCCS after a raft of calls from Lloyds regards our missed payments. Because of our situation and the amount of outgoings we've got we can only make a token payment and yesterday I recieved a default notice. I've paid all our accounts a £1 token payment per week in June and will be making another one shortly but I don't know what else to do. The CCCS can't put us in a DMP without having excess money to pay them which when on benefits with a now 5 month pregnant wife is looking unlikely until I get another job.

Is there anything else I can do?

CCCS_Alan

CWSG wrote: »

Yet another fool here who has managed to get herself into serious debt with not a great deal to show for it!

I've been on the CCCS website and filled in the debt remedy form and plan to phone for an appointment tomorrow to discuss a DMP.

I'm still not entirely clear how it all works in terms of what money you are left to live on. I know that you have to demonstrate to your creditors that you are paying all that you can but does that mean that living on a shoestring for the next X years? Am prepared to do whatever it takes to become debt free (looking into getting a second job at the moment but not too hopeful...) but I just want to have the full picture of what it entails.

Can anyone on a DMP tell me how it works in practical terms? At the moment I don't go out anyway and have cut out nearly every 'frivolity' so life isn't a great deal of fun but hoping it will be again one day!

Thanks in advance for any help!

Hi CWSG

A DMP allows you to make reduced affordable payments to your creditors to clear your debts overtime. Our service is free so all your money goes towards your debts and it’s one lump sum payment each month you pay which we disburse between all your creditors. We will send a copy of your budget, list of creds and a letter with the offer of a monthly payment amount.

We will ask for interest and charges to be stopped and hopefully a creditor will acknowledge this due to the fact you have sought advice.

With not meeting your contractual payments if you are on a DMP your credit file would be affected.

A DMP is not always the best option for everyone as other avenues may be more realistic for people to look at.

Hope this helps

CCCS_Alan

CCCS_Alan

rachel4331 wrote: »

Hi CCCS cousellors,

I found out last night that my husband of 8 years has run up £7,500 worth of debt in another persons name all conected tho to our home address.

It has come to light now cos he faces loses his job (very high possibility) through redundancy on Friday and will therefore not be able to maintain the minimum monthly payments until he finds other work atleast.??

To say I am angry, upset, and very frightened is an understatement but after a sleepless night, I am going to stand by him and try and help. I also don't understand how he has gotten away with it, from the credit card companies point of view?

My question is tho, where do we go from here. A so-called friend is just telling him to ignore the debts cos it isn't in his name anyway? DH is also frightened to get CAB or any other debt organisation involved cos they will go to the police?

We have two young children and we are already just keeping our heads about water money wise but now this, it will tip us over the edge.

You have kindly helped us with our own debts in the past and so we need some advice of how to sort this mess.

Please help me.

Rachel

Hi Rachel4331

Sorry to hear about your situation.

This is not an area of expertise but the understanding would be that your DH has possibly committed fraud as he impersonated some one to obtain monies, and this could be a criminal offence. It could be argued that because he has been making payments his intention was not to defraud the companies.
However this is unlikely to be considered a valid defence.

Our advice would be that he would need to come clean regards his actions to the creditors and try and come to an arrangement to clear the credit that he has used.

The credit companies may or may not want to take things further.

If you are still experiencing difficulties with your own debt I would advise using our online advice facility Debt Remedy, click here to go directly to Debt Remedy. By using this service you can remain anonymous and still be provided with advice.

Debt Remedy will assist you in completing a financial statement which includes information on your household, employment, income, expenditure and debts. All this information is used as a basis to determine the options available to you to deal with your situation.

Regards,
CCCS

CCCS_Alan

holdste wrote: »

Hi I'm new to posting hope this is right.

I've just finished paying back a car loan from a loan company not a bank. I got into difficulty along the way accrued a lot of charges, over £500.

Can I attempt to reclaim these charges using the bak charges letter templates or are private loan companies exempt from this type of claim.

Thanks for your help.

Steve

Hi Holdste

Unfortunately as far as we are aware you would be unable to reclaim the charges back. You can try but it is unlikely that you would succeed.

Regards

CCCS_Alan