Is it better to do your own DMP?

Plaitey

I am currently with Payplan under a DMP but I am considering setting up my own DMP purely because some of my monthly payment to Payplan go to protect my payments and life cover meaning that about £13 per month does not go to my creditors and therefore extends my debt repayment.
Has anyone done their own and can anyone advise?

Thanks

Tixy

Hi Plaitey - quite a lot of people do their own DMPs - here is a thread with some experiences - http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=1597891

People do it for a variety of reasons, sometimes if they owe debts to family etc. You will get more hassle from creditors but it depends if you are up to handling them. And one creditor point blank refused to stop charging interest just because someone on DFW was doing their own DMP (no matter what she said to them)

Can you not cancel the life & sickness cover with Payplan though?

Plaitey

Tixi,

Thanks. I am really getting annoyed by Payplan as they are taking longer to respond to emails and when you get in touch with anyone they are foreign and sometimes hard to understand!

It's just that the £13 per month doesn't seem that much but it is to me. Also 2 of my creditors want a £5 minimum each month and it's quite hard to do the maths on Payplan's workings at times!

They don't seem to chase up when no accetance or rejection to offers haven't arrived from the creditors. Should I just move to CCCS?

Thanks

Tixy

How long have you been with Payplan?
There has been a small number of people posting recently who don't seem totally happy with Payplan. I don't know if this is just specific to individuals cases or is because they have so many new cases they are overworked.
I wouldn't want to critise Payplan in general as many people are very happy with their service but Payplan isn't a charity like CCCS or Citizens Advice so maybe they are starting to encourage people to take on additional products to make some money out of them to be able to help more people (I'm only speculating here-don't lynch me anyone)

That said Payplan I'm sure offer a much better service and are certainly preferable to any fee charging DMP company.

I believe it is not unusual for creditors to never formally reject or accept a DMP offer but simply to keep taking the payments that are being made.

debtfreenewbie

HI, I have been doing my own dmp for 18mths now.I send eveyone postal orders and dont get too much hassle. I was on a dmp with cccs who have been brilliant but my situation changed and we dont have much surplus income, all our interest was stopped.

It really depends on your sitauation,eventually I need to do something as we will never bee free but im trying to get rid of the small debts first.

Good luck,Im sure there are others that could advise you too.It has to be your decision but if you are unhappy....

Plaitey

Tixi,

My first payment with Payplan was in June 2008. They have been really good it's just a shame they seem to have foreign staff rather than UK based staff. I think you are correct that they are trying to offer other things through them as they give you quotes for home insurance and offer a service for mortgage quotes if required.

Your advice has been good thanks. Just one question, in my job I receive 6 months full pay sick and then 6 months half pay so I wouldn't be too bad if anything happened and I was off sick for upto 6 months, so do you think I should stop the cover?

Tixy

Your payment cover is probably accident sickness and unemployment. Its a personal choice whether or not to have this - and I guess you have to consider the likelihood of those happening and the result if it did. Also look at how much cover you have - does it just cover your monthly payment? Do you have any other ASU insurance/ PPI cover?

My thoughts are that if on a DMP and you lost your job the more difficult things to cover would be rent/ctax/utilities and actually the unsecured creditors could always go to having token payments as the focus would be prority bills. If someone is on a DMP then their credit rating will have been affected anyway so going to token payments can't make things much worse.

So if I was on a DMP and wanted ASU cover I would consider getting something that would pay the money to me to do what I needed to (and I don't know if the product you has through Payplan would do that?).

Its worth comparing the price and benefits you get through them with what you could get elsewhere - http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/insurance/cheap-loan-insurance

Same goes for the life insurance http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/insurance/level-term-insurance

All that said these are just my opinions and I'm not on a DMP. Hope that helps a bit though