Disgusted with Payplan

January_Embers

A warning to anyone using Payplan. This is an update from a message I posted at then end of last week.
Hubby was being taken to court over his business overdraft & sent forms to fill out by the court. Payplan told us they thought it odd as Lloyds have been taking our monthly payment. They told us to forward the forms to them & not to worry, as they would take care of everything. We had no reason to doubt this as we have been with them for several months & everything was going fine (or so we thought).
They took 10 days to process our court forms & then instead of returning them to the court, they sent them to Lloyds! So needless to say, they never arrived at the court & judgement was made against hubby plus £380 court costs. We have also had to pay £35 to file for an adjustment.
It has also transpired that the 'accepted' payment to this account was being rejected & returned but Payplan didn't bother to inform us. We didn't think there was a problem as everything looked ok on the Just A Bank statement. When we asked what had happened to this returned money, we were met with, "Um...,ah...,well...".
Thanks to Payplan we are now deeper in debt than we were at the start with them. They say they will not return the court costs to us (I think they should as this is their fault) as they would have been added anyway. Not if we'd returned the forms correctly!:mad:
They let this happen and they don't care. A debt management company that doesn't care about getting its customers deeper in debt is one I can do without.

domesticgoddess

thats appalling.

Not sure what advice to give you as I'm quite new here, I'm currently with CCCS and they are very helpful, good communication too.

Have you tried advice from the CAB?

I'm sure someone can offer very sound advice here

All the best

January_Embers

Hi domesticgoddess,
Haven't been to the CAB yet, our is only open on certain days. They are open tomorrow so I will definately be going to see them.

KittyKate

I would make a formal complaint to them and cc it to their governing body.

No-one, in debt or otherwise, should have to pay for a company's incompetence.

snow_white_9

I agree, that really is appalling.

I have been with payplan for 18 months now and have generally found them to be ok. Initially they were fantastic - extremely supportive and obviously very knowledgeable. However, I'm sorry to say that their success has probably been their downfall also. I have had quite a few problems with communication (letters missing, unable to speak to anyone, actions not carried out) which has meant that I have had far more contact with my creditors than I was expecting - and with that has come more stress. I was led to believe that this was due to their huge work load. But, as was stated earlier, you should not have to suffer for their incompetence, work load or whatever. Being in debt is awful enough without the added stress caused by such mistakes.

However, I am generally in a much better position than I was 18 months ago so for that I am very grateful, but with hindsight would have considered CCCS or sorting it all out myself (with advice from CCCS or CAB).

mattp_3

Hmmmm

Tricky one this, I know all companies have administration errors, there's no reason why the courts should have charged you so much money though??? There will always be court costs, solicitors costs etc added to the debt when it goes to a CCJ - that is standard procedure, so its maybe not fair to expect Payplan to pay up?

Its hard to attack a free service, i think its a very unfortunate one-off, there have been very few negative comments about the services of Payplan or CCCS on the forum, I think its fair to say that they assist as many people as possible with very limited resources.

aimme13

hi, i am also with payplan and have not had any problems (sorry know that doesnt help you) but i would say this is the error and incompetance of one member of staff. You should write and make an official complaint. I know this is proberly the last thing you feel like doing but if someone isnt doing their job properly its needs to be dealt with, otherwise others may also suffer. Hope it all works out ok for you

jellycat40

I have to say that whilst I found Payplan very sweet, helpful and understanding they cocked everything up for me.

I called them, had a chat with a nice lady who said that another lady would call me, a date and time were arranged. The lady did call me. She said I was elligible for the low IVA scheme. I was very pleased.

1 month later I received paperwork which required a cheque for £336 which I completed and sent. Then I heard nothing. I left it a couple of weeks and called. Had a long reassuring chat with a different lady again. She assured me that my creditors were being contacted and that my money would be distributed shortly and the phone calls and letters would stop.

1 month later still nothing so I called them, left a message, they were very busy. Got a call back later from another very nice lady who said that my DMP was about to go through and that I really had nothing to worry about anymore. "I am doing an IVA" says I thinking she had her wires crossed. "No" says the lady, "you were considered to have to low a premium to be accepted, so we did not offer it as it would be unsuccessful".

I was not happy. I could not live long enough to pay off my debts with a DMP and no income! Fortunatly because I had called them in time I got my £336 back and they were very apologetic.

In the end I went Bankrupt and did not have their help.

Incidentally my daugther had a bad experience with CCCS, so you can probably have problems anywhere.

Sorry no advice, just sympathy from a friend.

Louise

In_Search_Of_Me

I know this is really hard, esp when you're feeling very vulnerable anyway. I d think you need to make a formal complaint about the standard of service...as said about both very overstreched and as they are voluntary organisations will be struggling - doesent make it Ok tho!

NickToye

I too found Payplan disappointing, I also found that the support from certain members of this board for PayPlan were a bit abnormal. I found that the service I received from PayPlan was poor, passed from pillar to post with no outcome.

I was advised by a financial advisor to ring a different company who organised an application for an IVA, which I am waiting for confirmation of.

He also told me that he gets calls from many disgruntled PayPlan customers, and he laughed. He also suggested that I don't take advice from people on web forums such as MSE, as they can be anyone, could be working for PayPlan and posing as people in debt to get business.

This suprised me because many people have been nice here, and that PayPlan had no reason to have my business because they were a non-profit organisation.

So by now I was a little confused. Anyway, I cancelled the process with PayPlan and gave them a reasonable explanation that was accepted. However, I received two further phone calls from representatives at PayPlan. One urging me to reconsider, which I thought was odd, if they were really busy and don't make any money, why is someone calling me up and pleading with me to use them.

The second call was questioning me why I had cancelled PayPlan process and if it was to do with anything such as poor service - infact the person seemed quite concerned.

Maybe they get alot of problems was my initial thought. I haven't thought about it until I read this thread. Not everything is as it seems.

Voluntary or not, these are people's financial problems that they are dealing with, and everyone should be dealt with with the utmost attention. We should expect nothing less.

January_Embers

Thank you all for your replies, certainly some interesting posts there.
Not feeling quite as mad about it today but still annoyed. We are going to make a formal complaint & do our debt management on our own from now on.