Trying to help pensioner with 50K debt - need some help and encouragement!

bosslady_2

The food costs are high as she has her grandchildren to stay at the weekends and there are at least 2 of them at any one time but i've asked her to note down everything she spends so i can get a more realistic picture.

I'm sure we could get the gas & elec cheaper (prob the insurance too) but i really want to get this problem with the halifax sorted out and at least have agreements in place with her creditors before I start changing her suppliers as she is phoning us in distress every time she gets a letter from the banks / credit cards and even her bills now and this really isn't like her. I think it's just the stress of it all getting to her.

She only gets one newspaper a day so it only works out a £7 a week. She doesn't really go out or anything so that's the only 'luxury' she as so i think that's reasonable.

I guess she doesn't really need the car as she gets free bus transport across Scotland but she's lent it to my partner for the moment. It's an old car so the MOT is always a nightmare but none of us can afford to buy a new one. The only thing we use it for is so my partner can see his kids as their home is fairly inaccessible by public transport. This one def. needs a bit of thought!

I'll be going over there today so i'll get copies of her bills and see what I can do.
Cheers!

skintchick

Shouldn't you be paying for the car then, and not her??

Good luck with it all - it's hard with old people cos they get so flustered (well, in my family they do) and they can be very stubborn too!!

Let us know how you get on.

amy21_2

thru lloyds tsb if u take a loan and want to cancel s/o on your acc for loan can be done automatically-u have to do as customer asks regrdless of if loan within bank. have had this prob before with a customer, i was the advisor on phone, not all phonebank ppl are unhelpful, promise

lynzpower

Have you thought about calling payplan? sorry dont know that much about them, but this debt looks very high, and the income is pretty low. Will payplan help people who are on pensions? I dont know but it might be worth a try.

bosslady_2

I guess we should be paying for the car. The car insurance and everything was paid up front last year. We may do a 3 way split on it this time round (unless the car conks out before then!) or something.

As soon as her son gets the power of attorney, we'll contact cccs / payplan or CAB but at the moment she really isn't able to deal with anyone over the phone. If I can agreements set up, at least it will give her peace of mind and then we can work on the budgeting. I need to get the phonecalls stopped to her house. I was there one morning when Halifax phoned and it really hit me then, that she hadn't a clue what they were on about! It really puzzles me how she managed to get that much credit in the first place! I don't believe anyone assessed her ability to repay.

Sorry to Amy21 - I'm sure not all phonebank folks are inhuman, just the ones we've spoken to recently!! No-one's actually said outright, no you can't cancel the STO (apart from collections) but we just get transferred again and again and again. My reasoning for going to te branch is that they can't transfer us anywhere else!

I used to work for Barclays and one of our mottoes was 'easy to do business with'. Believe me, the way the system is set up, means that those who want to help customers find themselves thwarted at every turn unless they are selling a 'high value' product (ie loan with PPI). That's why I left.

margaretclare

skintchick wrote:

Good luck with it all - it's hard with old people cos they get so flustered (well, in my family they do)

Not all of us do!

.... and they can be very stubborn too!

Fiercely independent is how I'd like to put it!

Seriously, I wonder if there's any room for doing an 'equity release' lifetime mortgage here. Dear grandmother, forget any idea of leaving the house to your kids, with that level of debt you're not going to pay it off in your lifetime anyway, so if there's room, access the value of your house.

We did one 3 years ago - we were paying £260 a month to Abbey on a repayment mortgage and we'd have been paying that until we were 83. We didn't fancy that idea, we could see a better use for £260 a month (but we've never been in that level of debt). Try Northern Rock for lifetime mortgages.

We have grandkids - 3 of mine and 2 of his. And they get nowt for Christmas, nada, zilch. When they remember to send us a card or something, then they might get summat. I certainly wouldn't go into deep debt just for Christmas presents. And if the kids come to stay weekends, presumably their parents aren't feeding them in that time, parents should help out a bit with the food bills. Could be that grandmother is being taken for a ride here - and not in her old car!! Agreed - if someone else is using her car then that someone else should be helping out a bit with the costs.

Her Frasercard should go - cut it up! Storecards are notorious for charging the worst possible interest rate, about on a level with doorstep lenders.

Just a few thoughts, I'll no doubt have others in the course of the day.

Best wishes

Aunty Margaret

amy21_2

bosslady wrote:

Believe me, the way the system is set up, means that those who want to help customers find themselves thwarted at every turn unless they are selling a 'high value' product (ie loan with PPI). That's why I left.

:rotfl: , same at my work. been told to look for a more 'customer service' related dept if i don't hit targets soon, but isn't everywhere turning into a sales dept in one way or another

tasks supposed to do during call
1. help with customer query
2. offer them loan or c/c if available
3. offer a savings acc(get date for them to transfer funds in)
4. offer home insurance quote, car insurance quote, .....the list is endless

even if i do get a customer to take a quote, i don't actually get any bonus unless they buy the product! :rolleyes:

bosslady_2

Thanks Aunty Margaret.

All the cards are cut up now.

I've got a folder full of old bills so I can start trying to save her a bit of money on utilities and such like. She's with British Gas so there's def. savings to be made there!

We had success with cancelling her Standing Order finally too. Just popped into the branch and it was done in seconds, now why couldn't the phone bankers do that. So that's a huge weight off our minds. She is going to try and cut down on food and I and she agree that the daughter-in-law who dumps the grandchildren on her is taking her for a ride but she is loath to say anything in case she doesn't get to see them ... she is going to try to think of a subtle way of putting it!

I reckon we can save maybe £200 (at least) a year once I've been round the comparison sites. Equity release - I hadn't thought of that, those sorts of things sound a bit scarey but prob. just cos I know nothing about them. Both her sons would rather she could sort her problems out now than leave anything for them anyway.

Her car insurance and Mot is due in May so we'll do some sort of split of the costs then. We run her around a fair bit in it and get her shopping in, she isn't confident driving it anymore as it makes some pretty weird noises!

Things are looking better already.

margaretclare

Hi bosslady

M&S and Frasercard should be the first to go - storecards, terribly high interest. Then the Halifax credit card. Any chance of applying for a 0% card and doing a balance transfer on to that. Don't say you can't do that after age 70 - yes you can, I've done it (and I'm also stoozing).

How much is owing on the mortgage, and how much equity has she in the property? It would be a really good idea probably to do equity release and pay off most,or all of the debts that way. No good thinking of leaving the house as an inheritance. All that she'll leave behind is a load of debts, and unless something drastic is done now, the total debt won't stay at £50K, because all those APRs are rolling up at a frightening rate.

You said she's elderly - how elderly exactly? People use this term quite loosely.

BTW we've just got a good deal on home and contents insurance online with Churchill. It was the lowest of the lot and yet covers everything we need to have covered. We follow Martin's advice to 'ditch and switch' and we take a good hard look at everything at least every 6 months, and if we think we can save money somewhere then we do it.

HTH

Aunty Margaret

bosslady_2

hi amy21

I really feel for you. I know it's no fun. I was in charge of the counter area of a real big problem branch for a few months - the internal accounts didn't balance, staff were shockingly badly trained, customer service was non-existent. Managed to really turn around the department so that we had no overtime, books all balanced, trained staff etc. Was the first time in 4/5 years the place had run smoothly but I was told that wasn't good enough cos there were no sales!! I'd really burnt myself out trying to sort it all out so to hear that was pretty devastating at the time. I ended up off sick for a while due to stress.

Am ok now though and starting another job very soon!! Not in a bank!