Any advice to help say good bye to our debt!

code-a-holic

Hello,

We have a unsecured loan with a settlement figure of £14568.
A MBNA card on £3685. 0% ended this month, now 16.9%. £85 a month
Mint card on £3843. 0% ended last month now 16.9% £25 a month
A natwest card on £1998 at 15.9% £42 a month.

I had an appointment at the bank on saturday and was refused a consolidation. Not the ideal plan but we really want to stop so much interest building.
I have had an application for a 0% card refused. Out credit reports seem fine so im assuming its just having so much debt stopping us getting successful applications.

We have not missed any payments, but can not afford to add much to the minimums.

Has anyone got any suggestions? Monthly once all our bills are paid and all expenses covered we usually have about £350 left but this month this has not happened as our youngest dd needed a new car seat, dh father lives in france and has been diagnosed with lukemia so dh had to get a passport done and needs money to fly out asap.
I was thinking of putting our remainder in another account and maybe every 3 months put to a bill if nothing dramatic has had to come first. With 4 children we would like to know theres money aside incase they need anything but feel silly doing that when interst in building on debt. Where do i find a perfect solution!!

chicago1234

Ultimate Credit Services went into administration in 2009 – but one of the directors of that company has set up another debt collection agency (along with some other people) called the Zink Group – and many of the letters they send out are headed Zinc Collections. They are effectively all part of and connected to a company called Complete Credit Consultancy. All of this is confusing and makes it more difficult for those being contacted by this company to know who it is they are dealing with. Zinc are based in and operate out of Glasgow and Complete Credit Consultancy is registered at an address in Stratford on Avon – though I understand that this is simply a registered address and no one from this company actually operates from there. So the people calling and writing to members of the public are Glasgow based.

I have had experience of these companies harassing my family for debts which they do not owe. They are in my opinion a very dodgy outfit and having a look through various website suggest that they may have upset many people. I believe that they break many of the Office of Fair Trading guidelines, but appear not too worried – after all, these guidelines have no legal status – i.e. they are not (necessarily) breaking the law by not following these guidelines and breaching these guidelines can only really be used to revoke their operating licence – this would appear at first to a major deterrent for debt collection agencies not to transgress these guidelines. But, it is often difficult to prove that they have been breached (these people know every trick in the book) and in any case I believe that last year only two debt collection agencies actually lost their operating licence. A tiny amount when you consider that these guidelines are widely flaunted and broken.

Most people being chased by debt collection agencies probably do genuinely owe money. But I have evidence that Zinc chase people who are innocent and do not owe debt. I don’t know if they do this to try and flush out the real debtor (should that be a relative of the innocent party) or if they simply try to harass people into paying in order to bring an end to their torment. As it stands, the law does not appear to adequately protect people from companies such as Zinc. It is only by challenging their behaviour in these forums that people can build up support to have them properly dealt with. The current law and regulation can work sometimes – but it needs people who are determined to bring a case that will stand.

WASHER

I am pleased you were refused a consolidation loan - they rarely work, you clear the loans and the cards, and before you know it, you end up spending on them again, so you end up double the amount in debt.

Can I suggest an SOA (a list of incomings and outgoings) and we will see if we can reduce your outgoings a wee bit.

I may be wrong here, but by your user name, do you shop alot? It will help us to help you if we know if you are a bargain grabber (bargains are only bargains if actually need them, not cause they are cheap!).

Welcome to the Debt Free board btw.

I'm not sure of what to make of the post above. Spam or not? Wrong thread maybe?

WASHER.x.

Tixy

Hi, I agree with Washer that writing out a detailed statement of affairs would be a good idea, you can then build in an allowance for costs that happen but not every month. This is the link we recommend - http://www.makesenseofcards.com/soacalc.html
It should allow you to see if that £350 you estimate is a realistic figure.

In principal your idea of building up an emergency fund is a good idea, the hard thing is working out the right amount for it (it wants to be enough to cover life's unexpected emergencies but not too much as obviously it will cost you in the interest applied to your debts).

I also agreee that consolidation loans often don't work, this is beacause they don't address the real cause of the debt, the fact that you must have been spending more than you have incoming.

What was the money from the debts spent on? was it specific large items, or generally overspending? was the unsecured loan a previous consolidation? if so have you run up the 3 credit cards since you took that loan out?

It certainly is much harder to get 0% cards now that it used to be, and I imagine your level of debt may well be the reason for this.

You mention the mint card is £3843, 16.9% and £25 per month, well the interest on the card will be around £54 per month, so if you are only paying £25 your balance will actually increase not decrease. So if £25 is the minimum, then this is something to be aware of.

code-a-holic

Thanks for the replies.
Despite my user name i wouldnt class myself much of a shopper so we are not concerned about spending beyond our income as such. The loan is from my husband students days.... too many credit cards, holidays and offers of loans that got in a sticky mess and once were together we set up a joint loan to get on top of it and stop the red letters. The credit cards.... The first we had and always paid in full each month. Then i became disabled and had to quit work, i needed a auto car and went for motability but needed a deposit, then 2 months later my husband had a car accident and part of his employment is that he must always have a car so we had to use some credit card to help pay for the car to get one quickly, all with the intention to pay big chunks a month but things have just gone too tight. We have had the mint card for ages without ever using despite them tempting us with increasing the limit often, but then the fridge broke so used it, then we had to move from a part furnished to an unfurnished so needed furniture in short space of time, then i had to pay for some medical treamtent as the nhs was refusing to investigate my condition.

Just feels like a run of bad luck financially and never having enough of a buffer in our account to help with these little incidents, then just when we think we have a few £s left when pay day comes around something else happens that needs money and the debt in the meantime will just grow.
I had done a SOA today then chickened out of posting it as we dont look too bad fiancially as i fear some might shout at me for not throwing more at the debt!!

DarkConvict

That Zinc group has come up on the forums before, cant find any information they even exist, they are not listed on the register of data controllers either.

savingmummy

you need to post the SOA!
If it looks OK then you need to work out why?
Is it accurate? Are ALL monthly incomings and ALL outgoings included properly?

If it shows you have money left each month then this indicates your spending on things you don`t really need maybe? SO this needs to be sorted out and YES thrown at debts.