DMP Mutual Support Thread (Part 6)

DevonGirl

MRSG2B wrote: »

Hi Mister Ron

I too was felt that way at the beginning - seeing other people's posts when I wasn't fully clued up on things, but now with the help of CCCS and this forum I can honestly say a massive weight has been removed from my shoulders! Yes, sometimes the budget is still a struggle (when things are problematic like cars, houses and pets!) however I can honestly say I haven't been able to keep my head this far above water in a long time!

Apart from the odd 300 phone calls from HSBC loans department (I've now got a new mobile so its not an issue any more ) all has been quiet and hassle free.....you strangely begin to miss being on first name terms with the postman! Hopefully the next few years will go as smoothly and I can start my life afresh, credit card free

Well done on taking the first step, we're all here for you if you need to ask a question or simply to vent!

Hi there MRSG2B

How are you getting on with HSBC? Like you I got fed up with literally 100s of calls from HSBC and ended up removing my number, so peace now reigns supreme...

However, they are managing to upset me by continuing to charge interest on my overdraft which is more than my CCCS allocated payment to them. The inevitable has happened and I'm now over my agreed overdraft limit, so they're also charging me for that too. I've written a strongly worded e-mail to ask if they can either freeze or lower the rates on my account as otherwise I will never get out of debt, but no word so far....
I've seen other posters on this thread with similar problems - it's so frustrating when the debt is going up, not down - but am hoping that as longer DMP survivors have reported, it all settles down soon. Only started DMP in April so guess it's still early days....:rolleyes:

DG

Eupho

DevonGirl wrote: »

Hi there MRSG2B

How are you getting on with HSBC? Like you I got fed up with literally 100s of calls from HSBC and ended up removing my number, so peace now reigns supreme...

However, they are managing to upset me by continuing to charge interest on my overdraft which is more than my CCCS allocated payment to them. The inevitable has happened and I'm now over my agreed overdraft limit, so they're also charging me for that too. I've written a strongly worded e-mail to ask if they can either freeze or lower the rates on my account as otherwise I will never get out of debt, but no word so far....
I've seen other posters on this thread with similar problems - it's so frustrating when the debt is going up, not down - but am hoping that as longer DMP survivors have reported, it all settles down soon. Only started DMP in April so guess it's still early days....:rolleyes:

DG

Helloooo DG :wave:

Flamin HSBC :wall:

Yep.. they DO call a gajillion times per day.. They call me from a new number each week (I stored them all in my mobile)

Anyhooo.. Just seeing about you saying you removed your number.. I just logged on to my account and saw my mobile number was still there :wall:
So I've removed it now.. and we'll see.

I notice too.. about 6 weeks ago.. I cancelled my DD payment from my HSBC account.. to my HSBC credit card. (in the hope it would stop some of the unpaid/returned charges) ... I thought maybe they would reinstate it themselves.. but so far.. they haven't.

MOST of my creditors are barely contacting me at all at the moment, after the initial flurry from most of them. (which may be a good sign?)
Mind you.. My Landline has been plugged almost non stop for the last few weeks.. and a lot of my creditors only have my old mobile number.. Luckily I forgot to update it when it changed haha.. phew!

RBOS have been great.. right from the start.. they have been fairly 'kind' .. and helpful. (and have now frozen interest & charges for 6mths.. then a review)
My worst creditor is Hitachi Capital.. they are after me all guns blazing :rolleyes:
and charge me £50 each time then send me a default sum letter.. £25 each time they write to me.. and £15 for a phone call (I think) .. :mad:

I'm going to write to them today.. and say how the &*^%! do you expect me to pay you back.. when you are adding sooooooooooo much in charges that you will NEVER get back what I owe you at this rate.

Anyhoooo.. they are the thorn in my side from my 12 creditors. (and I dont owe them a FRACTION of what I owe some of the others.. who HAVE accepted)

:wave:

MRSG2B_2

DevonGirl wrote: »

Hi there MRSG2B

How are you getting on with HSBC? Like you I got fed up with literally 100s of calls from HSBC and ended up removing my number, so peace now reigns supreme...

However, they are managing to upset me by continuing to charge interest on my overdraft which is more than my CCCS allocated payment to them. The inevitable has happened and I'm now over my agreed overdraft limit, so they're also charging me for that too. I've written a strongly worded e-mail to ask if they can either freeze or lower the rates on my account as otherwise I will never get out of debt, but no word so far....
I've seen other posters on this thread with similar problems - it's so frustrating when the debt is going up, not down - but am hoping that as longer DMP survivors have reported, it all settles down soon. Only started DMP in April so guess it's still early days....:rolleyes:

DG

Hey DG, I'm not doing too bad thanks, bar HSBC all seems to be ok! How's yours going otherwise?

HSBC credit card has been accepted and interest reduced to 6% instead of ridiculous %, so it is gradually going down now thank god! With my loan, nothing has gone on to this as yet, however I'm sure its only a matter of time until something kicks off there....especially when they realise that number is not active any more!! I'm in the same boat with my overdraft unfortunately, my payment was just slightly more than my interest each month so it was only going down a fraction, but last month I had to review my payments to CCCS so I will now be paying less. Its so frustrating to see how different departments within the same company work in such different ways....how can CC be so accepting and loans/overdrafts so crap?! :mad:

I'm looking forward to my debt free days, though its hard to see at the moment how this is going to be paid off in the time scale CCCS has advised me, as certain creditors just don't seem to want to play ball.....probably even more so now that my payments have reduced It seems like for every 3 payments to CCCS, my debt is only coming down by 1 payment!

MRSG2B_2

Eupho wrote: »

RBOS have been great.. right from the start.. they have been fairly 'kind' .. and helpful. (and have now frozen interest & charges for 6mths.. then a review)
My worst creditor is Hitachi Capital.. they are after me all guns blazing :rolleyes:
and charge me £50 each time then send me a default sum letter.. £25 each time they write to me.. and £15 for a phone call (I think) .. :mad:

I'm going to write to them today.. and say how the &*^%! do you expect me to pay you back.. when you are adding sooooooooooo much in charges that you will NEVER get back what I owe you at this rate.

:wave:

Hey Eupho!

What b@$t@rd$!! I cannot believe the cheek of these companies....how do they ever expect us to be able to give them any money if they keep stitching us up? I'm on one today anyways so far, so let me at them!

Hope they back down for you, its just ridiculous!

supersleuth

spendaholic wrote: »

Happy birthday!

Go into User CP from the menu bar and you can edit your sig from there, and preview it before saving.

Hope that helps, and good luck.

Cheers spendaholic, just testing my new signature.....

DevonGirl

Eupho wrote: »

Helloooo DG :wave:
Flamin HSBC :wall:
Yep.. they DO call a gajillion times per day.. They call me from a new number each week (I stored them all in my mobile)
Anyhooo.. Just seeing about you saying you removed your number.. I just logged on to my account and saw my mobile number was still there :wall: So I've removed it now.. and we'll see.
I notice too.. about 6 weeks ago.. I cancelled my DD payment from my HSBC account.. to my HSBC credit card. (in the hope it would stop some of the unpaid/returned charges) ... I thought maybe they would reinstate it themselves.. but so far.. they haven't.
MOST of my creditors are barely contacting me at all at the moment, after the initial flurry from most of them. (which may be a good sign?)
Mind you.. My Landline has been plugged almost non stop for the last few weeks.. and a lot of my creditors only have my old mobile number.. Luckily I forgot to update it when it changed haha.. phew!

RBOS have been great.. right from the start.. they have been fairly 'kind' .. and helpful. (and have now frozen interest & charges for 6mths.. then a review)
My worst creditor is Hitachi Capital.. they are after me all guns blazing :rolleyes:
and charge me £50 each time then send me a default sum letter.. £25 each time they write to me.. and £15 for a phone call (I think) .. :mad:

I'm going to write to them today.. and say how the &*^%! do you expect me to pay you back.. when you are adding sooooooooooo much in charges that you will NEVER get back what I owe you at this rate.

Anyhoooo.. they are the thorn in my side from my 12 creditors. (and I dont owe them a FRACTION of what I owe some of the others.. who HAVE accepted)
:wave:

Hey Eupho :hello:
Having followed your Hitachi Capital story over the last few weeks, it's so frustrating to hear that you still haven't had any joy!! I think that when the day finally comes that you finish paying them off, we should all have a party here on the DMP mutual suppport thread!! :dance: I'll bring the Sainsbury's basics victoria sponge and cola and you can bring the Lidl's vodka! :rotfl:

All my creditors too seem to have gone very quiet. I guess we've been put in the debtors file under 'not causing too much trouble' section... Similarly, the size of the debt bears no relation to the amount of hassle you get from creditors. My largest debt, around £14k, has been followed up by a 'we accept' letter, but pidly little amounts like £800 are being chased like nobody's business. Thank heavens we no longer have debtors' jails, or some of my creditors would be demanding I do a 10 year stretch with gruel and water...:rotfl:

I understand that companies have a right to chase payment and make (reasonable) charges for defaulted accounts, but when someone is really making an effort by going into DMP (self-run or via a company) it does show that they are taking it seriously, and so companies should respect that. There's a whole load of difference between folks like us who are trying to deal with it, and those who just say 'can't pay, won't pay'. :mad:

Anyway good on you for writing your letter - fingers crossed it reaches someone with some kind of compassion!!! (or am I being very naive?!).
DG

Daffykjs

That's terrible about Hitachi Capital Eupho!! How on earth can they justify that? In fact CAN they justify it? Are they allowed to do that?

Anyway, I'm still realing from my row yesterday with Natwest, Should i be phoning them today to see if they received the details from PP and where we are at? Or should I just leave it? I wish I'd got the guy's name! The more I think about it the more it winds me up!

Devongirl most months (guy on the phone yesterday told me of one month this was not the case) my pp payment covers the interest. but because it went over the limit months ago they continue to also charge me every month for being over and combined the pp payment doesn't cover that! I even offered yesterday to pay off the difference (if i could) and pay it then and he said that i was not working with them and not being helpful and this would not work! So F 'em! let them default me. Are you sure they've received everything for your DMP? natwest only just told me a couple of weeks ago that they hadn't and gave me another address and fax number. so they had never accepted! it remains to be seen now everything has been resent to this new address and fax number whether they still claim to have not received it! Have you spoken to them about it?

DevonGirl

MRSG2B wrote: »

Hey DG, I'm not doing too bad thanks, bar HSBC all seems to be ok! How's yours going otherwise?

HSBC credit card has been accepted and interest reduced to 6% instead of ridiculous %, so it is gradually going down now thank god! With my loan, nothing has gone on to this as yet, however I'm sure its only a matter of time until something kicks off there....especially when they realise that number is not active any more!! I'm in the same boat with my overdraft unfortunately, my payment was just slightly more than my interest each month so it was only going down a fraction, but last month I had to review my payments to CCCS so I will now be paying less. Its so frustrating to see how different departments within the same company work in such different ways....how can CC be so accepting and loans/overdrafts so crap?! :mad:

I'm looking forward to my debt free days, though its hard to see at the moment how this is going to be paid off in the time scale CCCS has advised me, as certain creditors just don't seem to want to play ball.....probably even more so now that my payments have reduced It seems like for every 3 payments to CCCS, my debt is only coming down by 1 payment!

Hey MRSG2B :hello:

We seem to be in a similar situation - all bar HSBC seem to be happy, and accepting payments. My guess is that some creditors find it more cost effective to just keep an eye on your account to ensure you keep up with the DMP without actually officially accepting the plan so if you screw up or withhold payment they can then pounce on you!

I know what you mean about reduced payments. I had a boiler problem last month which meant I paid £150 less per month via CCCS. They wrote to all my creditors and warned them. Only Citibank said they weren't happy but looking at my account they seem to have accepted the reduced payment. Back to full CCCS repayment amount this month so hopefully that should smooth things a bit.

Regarding your reduced payments, I hope that that doesn't mean that you've had any bad news / lost job etc?? _pale_ Or is it just that your original budget was a bit too tight? Either way I guess the bottom line is (as has been said MANY times before) if you haven't got it, they can't have it!

I agree it's maddening that one department within the same company can be totally different in their approach... Although I do work in a large organisation myself and know exactly how it happens... everyone's just too busy to put their heads together and work out a joint approach... Haven't had any problems with my loan (other than phone calls and letters). I guess the interest is already included in it so they know they'll make a profit in the end... With overdrafts and c/cs they show you the interest as a separate amount so it becomes more obvious.

Hugely frustrating though it is, try not to look into the distant future of those debt free days... although they will come around eventually. Just concentrate on getting through these first 6 months and hopefully we can start a DMP Survivors Group at the end of it (hang on that's a good name for a thread...) :rotfl: I'm with you all the way, MRSG2B!! :beer:
DG

DevonGirl

Daffykjs wrote: »

That's terrible about Hitachi Capital Eupho!! How on earth can they justify that? In fact CAN they justify it? Are they allowed to do that?

Anyway, I'm still realing from my row yesterday with Natwest, Should i be phoning them today to see if they received the details from PP and where we are at? Or should I just leave it? I wish I'd got the guy's name! The more I think about it the more it winds me up!

Devongirl most months (guy on the phone yesterday told me of one month this was not the case) my pp payment covers the interest. but because it went over the limit months ago they continue to also charge me every month for being over and combined the pp payment doesn't cover that! I even offered yesterday to pay off the difference (if i could) and pay it then and he said that i was not working with them and not being helpful and this would not work! So F 'em! let them default me. Are you sure they've received everything for your DMP? natwest only just told me a couple of weeks ago that they hadn't and gave me another address and fax number. so they had never accepted! it remains to be seen now everything has been resent to this new address and fax number whether they still claim to have not received it! Have you spoken to them about it?

Thanks Daffykjs :A
Natwest really should rename themselves CrapWest. I've heard so many bad stories about them. Fortunately I don't have any accounts with them. I did consider setting up a basic bank account with them. I went to my local branch to set it all up but they were so rude and incompetent that I just walked out and took my bad credit rating somewhere else!! :rotfl:

I hear what you're saying about checking that they've actually had the info, but actually a couple of my creditors have said the same thing and I think they are either just trying it on or that the letter has been stuck in one department that is not talking to another. I got CCCS to resend my budget and info again to those 2 creditors, and haven't heard back so assume no news is good news. Hope it works out with CrapWest for you. In an ideal world they'd scan letters and put all info on their computer file so, whoever you speak to in whichever department would have instant access to your current situation... but i guess that's far too sensible :rolleyes:

On other matters, I think we should send the heavies round to Hitachi for Eupho.... whatdya reckon?!!
DG

MRSG2B_2

DevonGirl wrote: »

I think that when the day finally comes that you finish paying them off, we should all have a party here on the DMP mutual suppport thread!! :dance: I'll bring the Sainsbury's basics victoria sponge and cola and you can bring the Lidl's vodka! :rotfl:

I'm there, with my party rings and the token bottle of cherryade!! (Every good party has a bottle of cherryade!) _party_