DMP Mutual Support Thread (Part 5)

geoffmr1

Hi everyone,

Like Loopylu36 I joined this forum just over a year ago, I haven't posted here since the end of March '08 as I was also fighting my own battles with DCA's etc.

Myself & my wife took our heads out the sand in Sept '07 & went through the National debtline & CCCS to reschedule our £36000 worth of debt. Unfortunately this debt actually started much higher & we decided to move from London to Suffolk with the small hope that the money we made from our property in London would allow us to repay a lot of our debts. As you can see with 36k remaining that never happened & to make matters worse we both lost our jobs due to the daily commute. We both managed to find new jobs but it was on minimum pay so we could only afford to pay £103 monthly towards the DMP (not much but at least it was something).

My two biggest creditors were Goldfish £14.5K & HFC Bank £10.5K (both credit card debts). Goldfish were extremely good at first accepting the DMP for a year, but HFC were a nightmare from the start & put my account in the hands of Weightmans Solicitors.

Weightmans were horrible to deal with, they continually made threats & eventually issued court proceedings against me to get a charge over my property. At this point I sent a CCA request & to cut a long story short they eventually supplied a priority application form that clearly didn't comply with the CCA Act 1974. Of course they insisted it did & the battle went on until 2 days before we were due in court in Dec '08. Weightmans then decided to accept my original offer of £25 a month & accepted the charges that had been put on the account were unfair which reduced the balance by 2k. I was terrified the whole way through this process & whilst I still believe I could have had this debt rendered unenforceable I have always maintained I wasn't after debt avoidance, so I accepted the offer. It also means they never got the charge they so desperately wanted.

Onto Goldfish & as I said they seemed great at first by accepting the DMP for a year. It was only a few months in & I got a default notice off them, I phoned them immediately & was told it's standard practice so they could close the account but that nothing had changed. It was all lies, they wanted to close the account so they could sell it on to Cabot, which they done. Due to my battle with HFC/Weightmans I was much better prepared & issued a CCA request immediately. I maintained payments whilst I was waiting as the years agreement was supposedly still in force & I didn't want to leave myself open. Several months on & Cabot couldn't produce the agreement so I cancelled all payments to them & made a complaint to the Financial Ombudsman, they were then given 8 weeks to find it & on the final day they sent me a letter saying Goldfish had recalled the debt. So it was back to the Financial Ombudsman again this time regarding Goldfish & the 8 weeks started over. Stupidly Goldfish sent me a letter saying they no longer owned the debt & that Cabot still had it. Since then both Cabot & Goldfish (who have since been taken over by Barclaycard) have confirmed to the Ombudsman that they won't be contacting me about this debt anymore & therefore £14.5K has been wiped off my total.

All other creditors have been absolutely fine with us for over a year now. We haven't had any phonecalls or threatening letters etc so it just shows how positive the CCCS & a DMP can be on your life. For all those just starting up, try to keep your spirits up even when it seems everything is against you. I can't speak on behalf of anyone but myself, however, a DMP really did allow me to change my life for the better.

Sorry for the long post.

jenevieve

I have just completed the Debt Remedy tool on CCCS and it has suggested a DMP.:eek: :eek:
90% of me is TERRIFIED and 10% of me is kind of relieved...
It told me that I could be debt free in just under 4 years which is amazing considering I could originally see myself paying off my debts until I was old and grey....

I am waiting for my CCCS Remedy booklet to be emailed to me and it said that I had to go to the last page to confirm that I wanted to sign up. Am still waiting for it to come through so have a few questions in my somewhat panicked current state.....

I already have an alternate bank account available that I can start using but this month's pay will go into my current account (A&L)

Pay day is tomorrow (25th) - as I have only just literally done the debt remedy, should I pay my usual payments? Didn't have enough money to stretch to one payment last month so have a double payment on that card. (It was realising that after all payments including rent, phone and car insurance and seeing that I would only have £200 for EVERYTHING else that pushed me to action...:eek: )
How long do these things take to set up following Debt Remedy advice usually?
What should I expect?
If I don't pay my debt payments (4 CCs, 1 personal loan, 3 catalogues - £53,000 of debt ), obviously I will have surplus £ - will this all be set up in time for CCCS to take as first payment?

Sorry for going on but am confused and very scared...........

Toffee_Penny

Hi Jen please don't worry and don't even think about making any usual monthly payments to your creditors just send them a token payment of £1 and keep the rest of your money as back up/general living expenses til your next payday.

DMP's with CCCS usually take no longer than a week or two to set up so don't delay in sending the paperwork back or getting statements together for CCCS information. I guess they are very busy at the minute so don't delay if you can help it.
Just want to say a big HELLO! :beer: to all the new faces on here. The more the merrier :T

xxxxx

jenevieve

Thanks toffee penny,
I have calmed down a little bit and read my debt remedy booklet properly which advises making token payments that I can afford to all my creditors. How does that work with my personal loan - do I just send them a cheque?

I could easily afford £50 each at least I think. I presume I should send a letter with each cheque - is there a standardised one that people use?

I feel scared about what will happen once my initial reduced payments have gone in - expecting a deluge of letters.
I rent/live with a good friend who knows nothing of any of this and luckily none of my cards/loans/catalogues have my home phone number as I really would rather keep it to myself.

I knew I was heading this way - talk about head in the sand. 3 of my 4 CCs are over the limit and I just haven't stopped spending......what an idiot........

Thanks again for replying; I feel very alone and stupid right now.

Toffee_Penny

Jen try this letter to send to all your creditors.....

Reference :- {insert CC or loan agreement number here}

Dear Sir / Madam,

I am writing to inform you that I am seeking advice and assistance regarding my current financial difficulties.
I have sought the advice of “CCCS” and I am in the process of trying to work out a Debt Management Plan with them.

In view of my circumstances, please accept the enclosed payment of £XX in lieu of this month’s payment to yourself. To this end, I would appreciate if you would freeze all interest and other charges on the above account so my debt does not increase.

Thank you for you assistance and understanding in this matter. I would appreciate it in future if all correspondence be made in writing to me.

I look forward to hearing from you as soon as possible.

Yours Faithfully
TYPE YOUR NAME HERE

Toffee_Penny

Jen! BUT don't send £50 with each letter to each creditor! :eek:

Most people send a £1, I sent a postal order for £2 to each of my creditors when I first started cause I felt a bit nasty sending them just a quid.

You need all the money you can get to set up your new bank account ready for the DMP, from now on you cannot rely on any credit including overdrafts, cards, etc so it is important for you to keep as much of your cash as you can whilst you get used to budgeting your income. CANCEL all direct debits and don't worry about your loan, I have one with Lloyds and they are included on my DMP. Loans, cards, catalogues; it's all debt so treated the same.

At the start of your DMP you will feel really scared about missing the usual payments especially if you have always thought of yourself as a good payer before, you will worry about baliffs, ccj's and what creditors will phone/write and say when they find out you are not paying them as much as before. Don't! most of it is bluff, everyone gets scary letters at the start, the creditors think you are taking the mick and trying to get out of paying so they try and scare you into pay more. Check out the CCCS website, it's great for debt and creditor information if you want reassurance.

I promise you each and every one of us on here have gone through the same emotions at the start; the sleepness nights, crying, feeling stupid because we spent so much money on tat with nothing to show for it. There are people on this thread with debts ranging from a couple of thousand to 50-60 thousand! :eek: Some will be on here for a few years, some a tad longer but not one person is judgemental of anyone else. We are all here to help one another. Once you start doing your research and finding out about what creditors can and can't do, you will feel differently towards them and laugh at the letters you get but one thing is for sure you won't regret contacting the CCCS and starting your DMP

Good luck and take care to you and to all the new starters

Rachel xxx

jenevieve

Thank you Rachel - your reply is so supportive it makes me feel all emotional......:o

I think I will do what you suggest and send £2. That will leave me with quite a surplus but as I am unbelievably rubbish at budgeting (hence financial mess) then it will give me a bit of leeway to get myself straight.

One last question - promise:o then I will shush up for a bit:

My bank account is with Alliance & Leicester as is one of my credit cards. If I underpay on my credit card, will they raid my bank account to get what they are due?
As I already have a Citibank account set up (not used since setting it up last year), should I move my money into that account asap?

sorry, I think that was two questions......

Toffee_Penny

Aw sorry didn't mean to make you feel sad I think you've just had that moment when you realise 'enough is enough' and you don't want to keep robbing Peter to pay that Paul fella anymore

As for your bank account I think, although not 100% sure that they can and will take out payments for other debts if they are owned by the same company so be on the safe side and withdraw everything to put in the new account otherwise you could find yourself in more mess if you have no wages to see you through til next payday.

Don't take that chance, get your new account set up as soon as.

dlb

Hiya jenevieve!
Firstly welcome to our online family!! And secondly well done for facing your debts head on. We have all been in the same position as you, some are at the same point as you, some half way through the process, and some oldies like myself who seem to have lived on the boards for years!! lol

Get a bank account that has no links with your creditors at all, and get all your money out the other account...this way you can be 100% sure the money cant be taken.

Pay only a small token payment as low as £1 to all your creditors and use the money you have left to set up a emergency fund...this can be used at a later date for topping up your monthly budget whilst you get used to it, or if something happens to your car, household repairs ect.

Just send everything off to cccs that they ask for as soon as you can and it will not take long to get the dmp up and running....and then comes the strange part.......................

:T YOU START TO ENJOY LIFE AGAIN WITH NO WORRYS!!!!!!:T

No longer will you worry where the next penny is coming from..because you will know...no panicing when something unexpected happens like car fails mot, boiler blows up...because you will have a emergency fund to fall back on....everything from birthdays and xmas will be covered by cash not credit!!!
(Just because your on a dmp doesnt mean these thing stop infact it means you can celebrate even more knowing its all paid for in advance)

And i bet you will become a budgeting wizz after only a few months on the dmp and begin to enjoying saving rather than spending..its amazing how fast your mood will change and life will be better. PROMISE

Donna
xx

ianmak

fermi wrote: »

Once again the old thread was getting a bit large, so here is a fresh thread.

The previous thread can be found here: Click ---> DMP Mutual Support Thread (Part 4)

This is the latest list I can find, unless anyone else can spot a more updated version?

rayday?

Not sure if any newbies are aware, but there is a list of all DMP Mutual Support Thread Members, that hasn't been added to recently (Rayday used to maintain, but I believe has been unavailable due to committments and what not). Could anyone who wants a number and hasn't already got one, post on here or PM me (not both as I'll get confused) and I'll have a go at updating the list!

Cheers.