DMP - HSBC Nightmare

DevonGirl

Errrm cough, 99.9% of the members on here DO understand how a ML works.

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Sorry Cyru24, but I totally agree with 10past 6. I think it's extremely patronising to assume that people don't understand how a Managed Loan works. And just to mention also that the vast number of people on the DMP support thread are on a FREE debt management company, so are not getting ripped off. Maybe you've had a bad experience or are a bank employee.....?

RIANNA30

We had exactly the same problem with HSBC, between me and OH we had two overdrafts,two loans and two credit cards. They refused to deal with CCCS and harassed us constantly, sometimes calling 6 times a day. I wrote to complain and asked them to communicate in writing only, which they completely ignored.

CCCS continued to make the payments, in the end we changed phone numbers so they could only contact us in writing. After 6 months, all the accounts were passed to Metropolitan Collection Services which is the inhouse collection for HSBC, they stopped interest and accepted the CCCS payments. Basically all we did, is ignore HSBC - it worked eventually!

I know it is hard to put up with their letters and calls, but they're all just empty threats. I too was a customer of their for 15+ years and I felt completely hacked off at their treatment of us, but they didn't care so you shouldn't either, hang in there.

HazelS_2

Hmmm

I went into HSBC a ew weeks ago to ask for a temporary overdraft of £100 until my new lodger moved in a month later.

I already have a credit card, loan and current account with them, and they wouldn't give me the £100 overdraft for one month... I said I probably might not need it, but didn't want to be hit with huge charges IF I went into overdraft.... instead, they said the ONLY alternative would be a managed loan... what tripe!!!!

I waked out of there, and borrowed £50 off my dad instead!!!

I think they are seeing theis managed loan malarky as a new way to make money!

Lois_and_CK

Yes, HSBC are horrible - I'm trying to arrange a DMP with them at the moment and they're totally unreasonable.

First of all stop the phone calls with this letter (I've sent this letter and they stopped phoning):

Dear Sir or Madam

Harassment by telephone

I am writing in relation to the quantity and frequency of telephone calls that I have received from your company, which I deem to be personally harassing.

I now require all further correspondence from your company to be made in writing only.

I am of the view that your continued harassment of me by telephone puts you in breach of Section 40 of the Administration of Justice Act 1970, and the Protection from Harassment Act 1997.

If you continue to harass me by telephone, you will also be in breach of the Communications Act (2003) s.127 and I will report you to OFCOM, Trading Standards and The Office of Fair Trading.

Please treat this as a formal complaint and send me a copy of your company complaints procedure.

Be advised that any further telephone calls from your company will be recorded.

Here are also some letters you can try now that they've refused to accept lower payments or to freeze interest (this is the stage I'm at):

Thank you for your letter of xx/xx/xx concerning the above account.

I/We am/are are sorry that you feel unable to accept the offer have made. The majority of my/our other creditors have accepted the offers made to them and I/we have commenced payments.

I/We cannot offer you more because I/we can only afford £x per month between all the other creditors, and it would be wrong to cease or reduce payments to all other creditors in favour of your company. The offer made to you is on a pro rata basis, as used by the county court.

In the light of the other creditors agreeing to my/our repayment plan, please would you reconsider my/our offer. I/We will be making the payments in line with the offer to your company, on a weekly/monthly basis, as a gesture of goodwill.

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

***

Thank you for your letter of xx/xx/xx concerning the above account. I/We am/are sorry that you feel unable to suspend interest charges on the above account.

The majority of our other creditors have agreed to the offer of payment and agreed to suspend any interest charges still accruing. They have accepted that to continue to charge interest would not assist in my/our present financial difficulties, and can only serve to increase my/our total debt.

As you are aware, I/we have already paid considerable sums in interest to our account. If interest charges continue, the monthly installments I/we are paying will not even cover that interest. Also the co-operation of my/our other creditors who have agreed to freeze interest already would be put at risk.

I/We would therefore be grateful if you would reconsider your decision not to freeze the interest. This would mean that the monthly payments I/we make would actually reduce the balance outstanding to your company.

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

And as a last resort, you could always let it go to court as I believe a court will accept your personal budget and will set a repayment plan based on what you can afford. I also *think* that a court will freeze interest too.

Try not to stress - that's easier said than done, I know - I've spent many sleepness nights and been in tears more than once because of debt stress. It really helps getting the phone calls stopped though. Do let us know how you get on.

Lois_and_CK

RIANNA30 wrote: »

After 6 months, all the accounts were passed to Metropolitan Collection Services which is the inhouse collection for HSBC, they stopped interest and accepted the CCCS payments. Basically all we did, is ignore HSBC - it worked eventually!

I know it is hard to put up with their letters and calls, but they're all just empty threats. I too was a customer of their for 15+ years and I felt completely hacked off at their treatment of us, but they didn't care so you shouldn't either, hang in there.

This is good to know, thanks Rianna.

iwillbfree84

Hi all, This is my 1st post although I have been on here a lot over the last 8ish months and have found advice offered invaluable at times.I too am unlucky enough to have HSBC as one of my creditors oweing them 1,542 (overdraft) and 12,404 (personal loan), I would just like to add a bit of information regarding my own situation in the hope this may help.I entered into a DMP via the CCCS in November 2008 (1st payment to creditors December 2008)....... after initially contacting them in early October I immediately felt better regarding my whole situation and went about the process that is involved in the early DMP.I had total debts of 42k (unsecured) across EGG Loan, Egg CC, Natwest OD, Natwest CC, MBNA CC and the above HSBC accounts. All of my other creditors (except MBNA) defaulted me almost immediately but accepted my DMP payments for at least 6 months and have so far stopped ALL interest and charges..... MBNA are still trying to get me to increase my DMP payment but have at least stopped charges / interest whilst they "negotiate".In fact i have heard absolutely nothing from Egg or Natwest since December.HSBC have proved to be an absolute nightmare on the other hand and attempted in late November / early December to bully me into a managed loan, I stated the CCCS have advised against any "rescheduling" or entering into any new credit agreements....... I was then subjected to the same rude treatment that others have also encountered. The so called advisor also stated bailiffs would be involved, luckily having a close friend who works at a county court dealing with such matters helped me calm down.Please be aware HSBC can only do two things apart from bully and harrass at this time..... 1. sell debt to DCA 2. Issue county court proceedings.A bailiff can and will only be involved if the county court accepts the banks claim and you receive a CCJ (not really much worse than the defaults as both mess up credit record) and then you would have to miss or refuse to pay at least one of your court appointed payments which you would have to be a idiot to do! Given that you have entered into a DMP and made regular payments that you can not only afford but sustain the county court is more than likely to agree with your CCCS / Payplan etc SOA and set the payments at the current level.After my truly obnoxious phone call from the HSBC I decided to change my mobile number retaining the old one on PAYT so that they will assume I have the same phone but always diverted / turned off and completely ignore any of the idiots they employ in their collections dept. I now respond to every letter promptly with the same information and I am looking forward to the day they either sell to a DCA or pursue a county court claim. My advice, sit it out..... you have done the correct thing by working with a debt charity, make sure you keep an eye on the estimated debt amounts though as CCCS always assume no interest is added! I update mine every month online so I can see the true picture! One last note regarding Managed Loans, i 100% understand exactly how they work having sat down to do the calculations when i was offered one..... they are not a good option for anyone who has debt elsewhere as they will over the course of your DMP cost a great deal more and provide only one positive...... no default, but if you have at least one elsewhere who cares about another! I hope I have helped at least one person with my experiences so far. Good luck all!Total debt is now 41,500 but i will be increasing my payments to the CCCS from 180 to 720 per month after eventually returning to my profession in early June.

MRSG2B_2

cyru24 wrote: »

The only reason people on here don't like Managed loans is because there don't understand how its works.

Its simple the MLA ( Mangaged Loan Agreement) work by combaining all debts you owe to HSBC e.g overdraft, credit card and personal loan (not mortages) at 7% above bank of england base so at the mintue its 7.5% APR, the typical credit card is 16.9% APR, Personal loan 9.9% APR, overdraft within limits 19.9% APR overdraft outside limit 29.3% APR so by combaining all the bebts on to a lower rate will save you money.

The bank is not breaking the code because there are not offering you new debt there just reschulding what debt you have with them and 99% of the time it will you be paying out less each month witch will help you get out of financial difficulities faster.

you will only be offered an MLA if you can not afford your normal monthly repayment but do have affordibility to pay sum thing back over within reasons you will need to go though an income and experence form with HSBC to find this out.

It works out a lot better to take out an MLA then to go to a DMC ( debt mangagment company) in most case these will rip you of by take a fee and change you to make the payments to your creditors each month, money tailor is the worst they take £115 for the first 9 months, what DMC won't tell you is if one of there offers are rejected you could end up been in final dement and having your debt passed on to a debt collections company its great for the DMC because there can poket more of your hard earn money but bad for your credit rating, the only reason why DMC's dont like MLA's is because its not seen as new credit your not breaking the agreement with and you can make over payments on the MLA any time you like with out getting charged so you can pay it of quicker so the DMC get less money

Hmmm, reeks of HSBC employee trying to reel us in!

I'm having the same thing, so you're really not alone....Devongirl and I are standing our ground with the HSBC thing, I agree with what the others say, the sooner its passed to a DCA the better, hopefully then the HSBC bully boy tacts will stop!

I was recommended a managed loan in branch a while back before I took up DMP, and when I questioned the staff member about what it was, what was the catch etc she couldn't answer me, and said I'd have to call a different number to set it up! Struck me as a little dodgy and everything I've read about it is too on here....some very bad experiences.

I'd say don't be bullied into signing up, stand your ground and stick to your DMP, it'll all work out better in long run

303

I've just been offered a HSBC Managed Loan at an APR of 0% above base rate (I tried to post a link to the thread I started, but as a new user I can't post links). Having read through the terms of the loan, on the face of it, it seems like a very reasonable offer, but given how many people have had bad experiences with Managed Loans, I'm pretty sceptical about how genuine the offer is. Think I'll be giving the CCCS a call tomorrow to run it by them

Deep_in_Misery

Living_in_hope wrote: »

Hi there everyone,

I am brand new to the site and dont really know what I am doing but I have a big problem.

Basically I recently entered into a debt management plan after very careful consideration. Previous to entering the DMP I had never missed any payments, which led me to paying my debts and increasing them along the way.

All of the debts were in the form of loans and credit cards. All of my creditors have agreed to freeze interest charges and have been superb in the way they have dealt with me. All of these except for the HSBC.

I have banked with the HSBC for over 20 years and I have a loan and a credit card with them. Prior to entering the DMP I had never missed payments and had kept my accounts in working order, I had only 2 years left to go on my loan and was paying off the capital. They have been sent a DMP financial statement however they are refusing to accept it and have said that I must take out a management loan instead over a 7 year period. I have refused so far to do this however they are hounding me on the telephone, and today have called me on my work phone even though I spoke to them yesterday for over 30 mins!

The lady today said that they will continue to call me everyday unless I agree to this managment loan, failing which they will issue a final demand and issue baliffs to recover the money, and that they will take me for all legal costs associated with this.

I am so terribly upset about the whole thing and I really do not know what to do. Should I take the management loan (even though I will be tied into more credit and more interest)? They say that they will continue to charge me so the debt rises by the day. I just think that they are being really harsh and I dont know what to do..

Can anyone out there advise me?

Thanks,

L I Hope

I am in the almost exact same position with both the HSBC and Alliance and Leicester, i too had the same history and payment record, my debt helper advised me not to phone them, leave the phone off so they will have to deal with him, alliance and leicester offered me one of those loans too.If you do it will never go away, you need to do what i am doing and stick it out and see it through, if the worse comes to the worse, put the phone down.That is what i am going to do, one of them told me yesterday they would sell off my furniture.

Deep_In_Debt

A managed loan is not actually clearing your debts but adding to them. On a dmp, you can increase your payments and therefore reduce the term of the plan more quickly. I was told last year by CCCS that it would take me 9 years to clear my debts, and I've managed to reduce that term to 5 years in this time.

I think that CCCS will advise against it. Never trust a creditor - if it seems to good to be true, it probably is. It may start as a good deal but further down, they will probably lump on various charges etc - otherwise, how will they make money?

As others have said, if you go for a non-fee charging debt management company such as CCCS, then creditors look favourably upon this and tend to freeze interest so you are paying no interest instead of the interest that HSBC want. If, HSBC won't accept the dmp payments, keep sending them the money anyway and hopefully they will pass the debt on to a DCA who are easier to deal with, accept lower payments and do freeze interest.