Burried My Head in the Sand - Big Debts - Help?

scbye

Hi Everyone, I've been browsing the forum for quite some time now, and have finally plucked up the courage to admit I have a problem and to hopefully start dealing with it pro-actively.
Current Debts -
£8900 - Capital One - Is now with Fredericksons, hasn't been paid since March, but have offered token payments.
£5500 - Co-Op Bank Loan - Is still being dealt with by Co-Op, but hasn't been paid for 4 months, lots of letters threatening visits etc. but none as yet.
£870 - Vodafone - No idea how/why this is at that amount - it is with CapQuest now, but original debt was £400 which I disputed with Vodafone, for 2 hours internet surfing when abroad. But needless to say, I offered them £50 a month until £400 clear, which was declined. i was not in contract with them, as had 18 month contract which ended months before, so not sure why £470 extra has been added to the account (even if they had charged the £25 a month rental up until now, it would only be additional £150 (been 6 months now). But Capquest is b-tards. They are now threatening bankruptsy.

Now, my situation and how I got to this point.
Past 3 years have run my own business with my OH. I live at home with OH parents so don't have huge outgoings. Everything was going swimmingly until, if I'm honest, last October. (recession?) but it took until March for me to realise that the debts outweighed the incomings by far.

Recently (last month or so) things have started to pick up, and I honestly see full signs of improvement, however, debts are so large, certainly can't afford the amount they want, have send off token payment offerings for all of the of £20 for each per month with freeze of interest/charges, none have responded/agreed etc.

Anyway, have read through these boards loads lately, and know that my next steps should be as follows (guess I just need a bit of encouragement)

Capital One/Frederickson - This was for a Platinum card. Applied for at 19 years old, and accepted, along with a wage of only £9000 per annum, now, after I applied, read through and the info said it was A: for over 21's., and B: for earning over £10,000. So, I thought I wouldn't get it - imagine my shock when I recieved the card with a £5000 limit, which was quickly upped to £8000. It has been 5 years since now, so I know it was before the 2006 rules, and I didn't sign anything. I also had the insurance rammed down my throat.
I was young and naive, but needless to say, first few years, never spent much, always kept up payments etc. But in October as I said, got in trouble, not enough coming in to pay debts, so was doing the robbing peter to pay paul using the card, and it soon rose to it's full limit by March.
So, with this one I think the best move is to send a CCA request? I'm pretty confident it won't be provided
BUT
My question is, I have been charged huge amounts of insurances (added it up to be over £1000 in total over the 5 years) and have probably got another £150 or so in charges on there aswell for late/missed payments. So, do I send the CCA request AND the charge removal/insuarance removal requests, or do I have to do them one at a time, if so in what order?
For the Bank Loan - I am considering sending CCA on this aswell, although in all honesty, I think I remember signing on this one. BUT I do know that I was forced into taking insurance with the exact words that I couldn't get the loan without it, which was in the region of £20 per month, and the payments were made for approx 2 years, so it could be a significant amount knocked off?
For Vodafone - Not sure what to do here, I obviously dispute the amount owed, but not sure how I go about it with it being with DCA now?

Any advise welcome.

scbye

OK, I have allready decided to start as I mean to go on, reading peoples thread has given me inspiration to carry on, at a point where all I wanted to do was give up.
So, from today onwards:
At the end of each day, all lose change in my purse (won't be much) will be put in a pot. This will be my debt free wannabe pot, and will all go towards clearing my debts.
I am setting myself a weekly budget of spend (don't spend much anyway, as work from home, BUT need to seriously cut back on the wine).
So, have looked through the cupboard and have a 1kg bag of pasta, and some rice, and a pack of mince, aswell as a few veggies. Also have a big bag of porridge, and a couple of loafs of bread - so, I won;t be going shopping this week, we will live on what we have.
So, my allowable spend is - £20.00 - £10 of this will be spent on my tobacco (I know, I should give up, but it's very hard when stressed about the debts) and £5 to get 2 bottles of cheap wine at the weekend.
£2 will with used to buy stamps to send off letters to the dca's
£3 will be used for postal orders of £1 for the DCA's for CCA agreement requests.
Next week, I will bring that down to £15.00
I will save the £50 that I would usually spend with the OH at the supermarket this week and put it into my DFW pot.
Any other ideas are welcomed!

DarkConvict

You seem to have a good idea of what to do so far, send out CCA / SAR letters, and read reclaim £1,000s for reclaiming charges and insurance money.

Gather up the facts and take it from there.

In addition consider talking to one of the following
CCCS
Payplan
CAB (citizens advice)
National Debtline

scbye

Thank you for replying. It will be a very busy and probably hard week/month etc, I know that, but I am determined. You know when you just wake up one day and that's it, enough is enough.
I think the final nail for me was the Council Tax issue in another thread - the past 2 months have been constantly worrying to scrape together enough to pay that, and I know I have kidded myself too long. I am going to go through latest letters today and send out the letters to the DCA's. Atleast then I know i've got the ball rolling.
Then I will gather the courage to phone the people that can hel.
The thing with being self emplyed is some days (although rare right now) you can see a light at the end of tunnel, but other days you just want to curl up in a ball.
I just read about and signed up to dooyoo. My plan is to use this as a secondry DFW pot, and I will aim to make £50 this month, then perhaps try for £75 next month (this month is lower because I know I will need alot of time and energy to get everything else rolling).

This website is fantastic, I just wish I had the courage to act sooner. I am lucky to have a supportive OH who knows the whole situation, although he does try to keep out of it as much as possible, which I appreciate, although sometimes it does feel like I am on my own against the world. lol

Anyways, thanks again for your reply.

scbye

Just thought I would update with my progress so far today, just because it makes me feel a bit better writing it down.
OK, have printed the CCA request letters and spent my £3 allocated for the postal orders for them. Have just put them in the envelopes and will post them after my lunch, of a budget super noodles packet from the cupboard.
Have just put 72p of loose change from down the side of the sofa into my "pot" as every little helps.
I would also like to apologise for my appalling spelling in the last few posts - my keyboard keeps sticking which is a nightmare.

Moneytroubles_2

Hi Scbye, Well done on joining the site!

Im still fairly new myself but find the site brilliant! I too have a loose change pot, which we have filled so far before and then emptied it but me and OH are determined to fill it to the top

If you find it easier to write things down, maybe start a diary on the debt free diaries board, i write in mine everyday and find it really helpful.

Also why not look at a couple of challenges, they can be quite fun and a great motivator.

Best of luck

XX

scbye

Thank you - off to look at the challenges now.
I was thinking about opening a savings account at the post office (one of the basic ones that you can open with £1 and have to write to get the money out) to put my money pot savings in each week. Has anyone got one of these accounts with the post office? Do you think they are a good idea? I worry if the money is in the house I will dip into it when skint (quite often I expect), but am determined this is my debt free pot used to pay off debts only.
I've just cut up my card aswell, although it was useless anyway, it still felt good doing it.
Have just remembered another debt - £250 on a Style store card. Had forgotten it because haven't heard from them in a couple of months. So, do I send a CCA request to them aswell, or should I wait until I hear from them/DCA?
xxx

bailey59

Hi Scbye, I'm new to this and have just started to address my debts. I had a credit card with Capital One who then passed the debt over to Cap Quest. Just to let you know they phoned me morning noon and night requesting money from me. I wrote to them a couple of times and spoke to them on the phone telling them I was getting advice from the CAB & CCCS. Then a couple of weeks ago they phoned me at 8.15am and gave me 7 days to pay £2000.00 or monthly instalments of £250.00. The debt with them is for £7500. There was no way I could do either. The man on the phone told me to ask my family and friends for the money and he would phone me back in 7 days to find out what option I was going to do. I was horrified, scared sick and couldnt stop crying. Then I found this site. I wrote to Cap Quest offering them a monthly sum that was acceptable to me, I sent a token payment with the letter, and I named the man I spoke to and waht he was asking me for. I sent the letter recorded delivery. They accepted my token payment and they have agreed to let me pay the amount I can afford to them every month and I am now on a payment plan with them. It is such a relief. The phone calls have stopped and I feel like I can breathe again. If only I had done it sooner!! Now I just need to sort my other creditors out! From what information I have found out off these boards having a debt collection agency dealing with your account can turn out ok. Good luck.

scbye

Just to update, the tracking of recorded showed my CCA for the Cap One was signed for today. So I presume it is 14+30+2 from now? Is that correct? Thanks again everyone for your support. Have made nearly £2 on dooyoo today from 2 reviews, not much I know, but didn't take much time and all adds up.

BeautyandtheBeast_3

hi and welcome xxxxx

scbye

Thanks BeautyandtheBeast - you all have such great usernames. xxx
Off to bed now to try and get some sleep. Tomorrow I will master my signature. lol. Wish me luck. I'm good with html but any of the BBCode stuff and I am b******d. lol.