My fight to get my life back!

pebbles88

fatbelly wrote: »

Hi Pebbles


Why are you going to offer the catalogue companies anything? You don't even know if they are enforceable debts yet. CCA them (I hate that phrase) and until they can prove a valid agreement pay nothing.

You are in danger of !!!!ing away (scuse language) 5k of mother-in-law's money with your latest strategy. If you have an overdraft, start a new bank account (unconnected to any of your other debts) and put all income into the new clean account. Treat the overdraft as just another unsecured non-priority debt to add to the other 31k.

Apologies if I've been too blunt!

No you haven't been too blunt, you have some very good advice, many thanks.

i will send those letters off to the catalogues first thing monday!

my husband has applied for an account with barclays so hopefully will hear from them soon. we both have an joint account with Halifax, as well has separate ones in our name only, can they access those accounts to take money without permission also??

only reason i ask is that i don#t know where i could open a basic account as i am on job seekers, so many seem to require that you pay in over a £1000 a month nowadays!!

also, as our mortgage is with halifax, will they start causing problems with that if we defer on the overdraft??

Jesthar wrote: »

Hi Pebbles

I agree with fatbelly - it would be a good idea to check if the CCAs on your catalogue accounts are valid. If they aren't, that's £1500 less to pay

it certainly wont hurt to try!!

I also agree on getting another bank account with a different if you have overdraft issues - best to protect your money!

In the meantime, thinking about the very generous 10k, I'd say definitely pay off the Capital One card, as it is a very small amount and the interest rate is horrible! :eek: After that, if the catalogue companies manage to produce valid CCA agreements (meaning you have to pay them), paying them off may be a good idea, as again they tend to have nasty interest rates.

the capital one is horrendous, we are looking to get shot of this very soon as you say it is only a small amount thankfully

After that, you could put what money remains towards your debts straight away and save yourself a lot of interest, or maybe negotiate some F&F settlements (not my area of expertise, sorry!). Or you could hold off a little and see if your incapacity benefit came through and helps matters. Don't make any big decisions quickly, though, always take the time to weigh up the options.

In the meantime, you mentioned charges on your credit cards - have you incurred any already? If so, time to set about reclaiming those, I believe, as they have been ruled unfair by the courts!

i havent incurred any charges yet, but if i do then i will be looking into claiming them back.

Now, go get yourself some sleep; things will seem a lot clearer in the morning.

*hugs*

~Jes

TurnaroundSue wrote: »

If the car is NOT on hp and is on a loan, then why don't you seriously consider selling it and repaying the loan - using any surplus to buy a small cheap run around. Like someone has already said, you can get a reliable car these days for around £1k. That will bring down your debt and also maybe snowball to another debt or in your current situation reduce your monthly outgoings.

if we tried to redeem the loan early the charges are utterly horrific. it would cost us more to do this.

the one thing the guy from CCCS told us that as it is a loan, and not HP, that if we did defer they cannot just take the car. so as it is another unsecured debt we should perhaps be able to negotiate with them.

Good luck, and keep posting - the advice and experience from the good people on this board is invaluable.

it most certainly is!

UncleBuck wrote: »

Hi Peebles

I think we have have both learned a few things about the CCA etc from our learned friends!

Just a couple of things are your SKY package, mobile contract and Internet access the fixed contract which you were eferrring to earlier which are dur to expire later this year? I only ask as each seems to be very hefty.

Cheers UB

Hi,
yes the mobiles we are tied into until later in the year, we have tried to negotiate but they wont have any of it. going to keep trying though.

the sky package is split with my mum, i would love to change and go to freeview, but when we looked we were told that we dont get much signal in our area and we also don't even have an aerial on the roof! it blew down years ago and our next door neighbour took it down for us as we had sky then anyway.

Internet again my husband needs for his job, we have got this at a reduced price also tied in with the land line.


Sammy115: Thank you :grouphug:

Jules wrote: »

Do you and your OH get any Working Tax Credits? If you and your OH are over 25 and he works 30+ hours there may be a small entitlement on the figures you have used in your SOA. It may be small but every little helps.

Tax Credits helpdesk - 0845 300 3900. The Tax Credits helpdesk is open from 8am - 8pm seven days a week.

Jules

Hi,

we don't qualify for any working tax credits at the moment because i was receiving sick pay from work before i had to give it up, if i understand correctly it works on what you earned the year before?? as my DH has done so much overtime this last several months it will prob take us over the earnings bracket again, but we are still going to try.

I have asked the council to send me the forms for help with council tax. if we get that at least it will help a bit.

scorpio_biker

Hi,

When we cancelled our Sky we kept the box and card and received FreeSat which comes through the sky dish (we don't have an aerial connected). That might help. The Sky site shows the channels you get (I believe).

HTH and good luck

UncleBuck

scorpio_biker wrote: »

Hi,

When we cancelled our Sky we kept the box and card and received FreeSat which comes through the sky dish (we don't have an aerial connected). That might help. The Sky site shows the channels you get (I believe).

HTH and good luck

This is exactly what I did and it worked first time:T . You may want to check out http://freesat.co.uk/ and http://www.joinfreesat.co.uk/ , a basic freesat receiver box will cost~£60 and that's it, no more subs going to SKY and more money in your pocket..

Cheers UB

pebbles88

UncleBuck wrote: »

This is exactly what I did and it worked first time:T . You may want to check out http://freesat.co.uk/ and http://www.joinfreesat.co.uk/ , a basic freesat receiver box will cost~£60 and that's it, no more subs going to SKY and more money in your pocket..

Cheers UB

OOhh i will look into that!! is that what you get now through the sky dishes and not freeview?? sorry if thats a stupid question!

well a quick update, sent CCA letters of to the catalogues with a £1 postal order each, so will see what happens. I had a thought today, if that is the case with CCA agreements, it crossed my mind that i have had my natwest CC since 1998, and I am 90% sure i have never signed anything other than the original paperwork, but don't know if that would be the same???

UncleBuck

pebbles88 wrote: »

OOhh i will look into that!! is that what you get now through the sky dishes and not freeview?? sorry if thats a stupid question!

well a quick update, sent CCA letters of to the catalogues with a £1 postal order each, so will see what happens. I had a thought today, if that is the case with CCA agreements, it crossed my mind that i have had my natwest CC since 1998, and I am 90% sure i have never signed anything other than the original paperwork, but don't know if that would be the same???

That's right, I got the lnb (it's the bit on the from of the sat dish) changed because the freesat reciever i bought had 2 feeds. We have a 4 yr old so Disney channel is a requirement at the moment other wise i would ditch VM in a flash!

Cheer UB

pebbles88

UncleBuck wrote: »

That's right, I got the lnb (it's the bit on the from of the sat dish) changed because the freesat reciever i bought had 2 feeds. We have a 4 yr old so Disney channel is a requirement at the moment other wise i would ditch VM in a flash!

Cheer UB

im not very technical so not too sure what you mean .

so can i use the sky boxes i currently have as freesat receivers?? or just for freeview?? and do i have to change any equipment ??

debtfreein4years

if you cancel your sky package you get to keep the dish and sky box. if you keep them plugged in as you have them now you will be able to watch most freeview channels and a few extra i think through it without having to pay anything apart from your normal tv licence fee.

UncleBuck

pebbles88 wrote: »

im not very technical so not too sure what you mean .

so can i use the sky boxes i currently have as freesat receivers?? or just for freeview?? and do i have to change any equipment ??

Check out http://www.joinfreesat.co.uk/ you can get a freesat reciever (you would ditch your SKY box - just plug the cable into the back of the freesat box instead) such as the Grundig GUFSAT01 for less than £50 from Argos http://www.argos.co.uk/static/Product/partNumber/5321818/Trail/searchtext%3EFREESAT.htm

If you have an HDTV or HD ready TV a box that can recieve BBC HD will cost around £120

Cheers UB

pebbles88

hello all :hello:

quick update, have sent letters off to my cc companies and the loan company, all with a letter detailing whats going on and a budget sheet. also sent £1 token payments with all.

feel a bit sick with worry but at least we are addressing the problem now rather than sticking our heads in the sand, just dreading hearing back from them.

Ames

Have you tried applying for DLA? You can get that and work, and if your hand/wrist problems mean you can't cook a meal from scratch then you should get the lower rate care. That's currently £17.75 a week. If you've got a DIAL near you they can help you with the forms.

I agree with the others, I think you're going to have to sacrifice your credit rating here.