A little advice please

smilely

Hi,

I got the letter today from my money advisor at my local council to say he has written to all my creditors with my DAS proposal and they have until the 24th of Feb to reply if they object.

Just wanted to know if any of you had tried to arrange a DMP or a DAS and who accepted and who didn't.

I owe (hangs head in shame) Approx

Bank of Scotland CC - £2,200
Bank of Scotland Loan - £2,200
Bank of Scotland CC - £956
Lloyds CC - £4,500
Barclaycard - £550
Thomas Cook CC - £1,000
Royal Bank of Scotland OD - £3,900
AA Finance - £5,000

Also has anyone had an luck in getting mobile phone contract cancelled or reduce during the term? I'm with t-mobile paying £40 a month but still have about 9 months left to go.

Thanks in advance.

niccatw

Hey Smiley

Welcome to the forum. I'm afraid I can't help with how creditors might respond to your DMP as I decided to go it alone with my debts (and please, hold your head up high - and be proud to be dealing with your debt!). From what I've read on the forum, some accept it and do so quickly, others are not so easy to deal with and might try to refuse or make it more difficult for you. Othewr folk may be along shortly that have had experience of the creditors you mention.

As to TMobile, they will probably tell you that you cannot break your contract but if you can't afford it, you can't afford it. Keep at them - they'd soon cancel if they missed your payments so it can be done, they might just not make it easy for you. Find a free or local rate number on Say No to 0870 before you call them though!

Good luck

smilely

Thanks niccatw,

I guess if t-mobile won't help they will just default me if i stop paying. Just want to avoid yet another default.

I think this is the worst part just waiting on them to say yes or no.

Snippa

I haven't done a DAS myself, so can't answer your particular question. But from what I understand of them, most companies don't tend to say no, as it's not in their interests. With a DAS, all interest and charges are frozen, but you do pay back all the debt over a certain period. So the companies know you have a money adviser, know all creditors are being treated the same, and know they will get their money back. If they say no and make life difficult, the upshot is likely that you end up going BR and they possibly get nothing.

The only organisations who would benefit from that would be priority, secured creditors, like mortgage companies, council tax, or HMRC, as they'd be paid off first, or could sell your property to get their debt back, or arrest earnings or whatever. So I'd suspect those would be the ones who might say no. Unsecured, non-preferred creditors would gain nothing from doing it, and may lose.

That's not to say they would never say no; just I can't see why they would.

Snippa

No need to hang your head in shame, btw. Many, many people in the same situation, or far worse, including the government and all the banks you owe money to

smilely

Snippa wrote: »

No need to hang your head in shame, btw. Many, many people in the same situation, or far worse, including the government and all the banks you owe money to

Haha made me laugh.

My mortgage is all up to date never missed a payment and everything else is unsecured. My mortgage is with bank of scotland and i have been and spoke to them about adding all my other debts to my mortgage (:eek: Wrong thing to do i know that now) fortunately they said i could as i was over 85% LTV so i couldn't borrow anything more against the house. So hopefully they will look at that as well and see that there isn't enough in the house for them to say no. I really only need them to say yes as i owe them the most as if any of the others object there is a good chance that because the majority have accepted then it will be approved.

It's just so hard sitting second guessing them all. Roll on the 24th

tazzy2010_2

With regards to the mobile phone contract (I used to work for o2) you used to be able to reduce the tarriff after 3 months of a 12 month contract. Not sure how it works now for the longer contracts and more expensive phones.....
Have they refused to reduce it or have you not asked yet?

smilely

tazzy2010 wrote: »

With regards to the mobile phone contract (I used to work for o2) you used to be able to reduce the tarriff after 3 months of a 12 month contract. Not sure how it works now for the longer contracts and more expensive phones.....
Have they refused to reduce it or have you not asked yet?

I called up customer services and they said no but told me to speak to cancelations but i haven't phoned them yet. Just wondering if anyone had managed to get them to cut it down.

tazzy2010_2

Ah ok, well I would give Cx services a quick ring and ask them at which month of the term of the contract you are allowed to reduce your taffif. You may be free to reduce it within a couple of months, then you could drop down to the lowest tarriff. Otherwise it may be difficult to get it reduced as it is normally written into the terms of the contract. You could also briely explain your situation about financial difficulty and how you would like to keep paying them but can't afford the amount. They may be able to reduce it, at o2 I have heard of cases where they did. Good luck

smilely

A bit of luck on that front just explained financial difficulties and said i can't afford it going into DAS etc and the girl hummed and hawed about it but reduced it to 10 quid a month tied me in for another 18 months but i would spend £10 a month PAYG anyway.