Anyone organising their own DMP?

Numpty_Monkey

I can totally understand,
I hope others join you, the new and the old:cool:
as it is a very good idea you have:T

boo80

Treacle1983 wrote: »

I got fed up with my DMP gregory pennington - I was paying them £40 a month and also had a managed bank account with them costing me £12.50 a month.
It cost premium rate to do anything with the bank account like move money etc... and premium rate to call my account handler.
The last straw was when i lost my job and became redundant in November - My DMP wasn't very nice at all and DEMANDED I give them some of my job seekers allowance towards my debts - and not just a couple quid, they wanted £45 a week!! Out of the £60.50 I was getting.
They also hadn't managed to stop the interest being charged on one of my debts with natwest so the payment going to them every month meant my debt with natwest was going up rather than down!!

I snapped in the end and had an argument telling them how useless they were and that i'd do it myself.

I stopped my DMP and cancelled the bank account with them.

I opened up a free account with Halifax - just a basic account with internet access.

I made contact requesting all my statements, payments, total amount owing, interest details and settlement amounts from all my creditors etc... whilst waiting for this i carried on paying what they had been getting from the DMP.

When I looked into it my natwest account had gone up by a couple hundred quid and not down - because the DMP hadn't stopped the interest or late payment charges etc.. After a couple letters these costs got removed from my account backdated to when I joined the DMP.

The DMP had also negotiated a lower payment on my loan - but on looking into it they hadn't done it very well and had actually just exteneded the loan for a few years - so I would have been paying loads more on the interest and apr etc... I have manged to do a deal to lower the rates of interest and apr to that of when I took the loan out, but will be paying the lower amounts over a longer time. With the option of paying off £100 chunks as and when I have the money.

Hope this helps guys...

That's amazing Treacle, well done on being so organised!! How have you managed to get your creditors to lower the rates? Thanks so much for sharing your experiences

longforthesun

HI we ate going it alone too with our DMP. Have been with CCCS since September last year but due to an increase in our familys income (I got a job) we are going it alone although CCCS will pay our April installments and from May we will be on our own.

To be honest CCCS did not speak to our creditors on our behalf they still phoned us so we have been used to dealing with our creditors although it was good to have CCCS on board for advise and they have told me to call them at anytime in the future if we need any help.

Gemmzie

We've been doing our own DMP for nearly three years now. Mainly because when we started, neither CCCS or Payplan could help someone who was self employed.

Happy to help any way I can. This is another reason we need a DMP board, not just one thread.

boo80

homealone wrote: »

i was just having one of those days when the whole hopelessness of the situation gets you down and saw your post. you have done so well and achieved so much. your post particularly caught my eye because although still early days for me, 3 months behind on payments. i too want to sort a dmp for myself. cccs, payplan etc dont seem to undestand or want to help with my case being slightly different from the norn they just want to plough on and set a dmp up regardless of whether or not you feel you will have trouble sticking to these amounts. i feel i must be able to do better myself. any tips or advice you may have i would love to read either on here or by pm. keep up the good work!

Good luck Homealone. I had a similar problem with not having a 'normal' situation and I was terrified about organising things myself, but so far things have been quite straightforward. 1st thing I did was request a information pack from National Debtline which has advice on contacting creditors and templates for letters as well as how to work out how much you should pay each company. This is the 1st month I haven't been able to pay (I've been living off my last trickle of credit and thin air until this point) and when I rung my creditors to tell them I was having difficulties and was arranging a DMP they have all been really nice and really helpful. My advice would be to set this up asap as once the ball's rolling you'll feel so much better. B.x

Lois_and_CK

Great idea for a thread, Boo.

Is this the information pack you were talking about from National Debtline? -

http://www.plenet.org.uk/tools-and-guidance/national-debtline,10099,FP.html

(I can't actually get the PDF to open, so if anyone else can I'd be interested to hear what it contains!)

boo80

Lois_and_CK wrote: »

Great idea for a thread, Boo.

Is this the information pack you were talking about from National Debtline? -

http://www.plenet.org.uk/tools-and-guidance/national-debtline,10099,FP.html

(I can't actually get the PDF to open, so if anyone else can I'd be interested to hear what it contains!)

Yup, that looks like the one. They sent it to me in the post, it's ALOT more detailed than the one CCCS sent me.

It's a A4 booklet that has a couple of pages on 'increasing your income' 5 pages on 'working out a personal budget' 8 pages on 'dealing with priority debts' 12 pages on 'credit debts' 7 pages on 'mortage arrears' 10 pages on 'rent arrears' then a page on bailiffs, getting rehoused, and a fact sheet as well as pull out budget sheet and letter templates to send to creditors. I haven't read the whole thing, just the bits I needed but it's really useful, if you can't open the PDF give them a call on 0808 808 4000 and they'll send you one. B.x

Lois_and_CK

Thanks, Boo. I just tried again and managed to get the PDF to open - it's big at 70-odd pages so maybe that's why I had no luck this morning.

It looks really good - even if people aren't planning on going the DMP route, it still looks like it contains useful advice for dealing with debts.

Trollfever

From CAB:

If you are thinking about using a DMC, you should get advice from an experienced adviser, for example, at a Citizens Advice Bureau

http://www.adviceguide.org.uk/index/life/debt/help_with_debt.htm#debt_management_plans

Leixlip1

I've ben doing my own DMP for over two years with the support/assistance from National Debtline and this site.
Some problems at the start but most of my creditors have been okay and some quite helpful.
Good luck.