advice about payment settlements please

maeeve

I have just posted this on a question for CCCS forum but not sure how quickly i would get an answer (being abit impatient-but im on a mission!!)

We have a DMP with CCCS which has been brilliant and a complete weight was taken off our shoulders a couple of years ag when we began.
We have a debt with just £347 owing to ABBEY and was wondering if you think it might be worh making an offer to them to finish the debt early with a settlement figure?
we also have £522 to M&S but maybe one at a time for now??

We maybe in a psoition to ask family for a small loan to pay this so we can then offer the other companies bigger payments.

What would your advice be on this please?

thankyou if anyone can help

Tixy

Hi maeeve

Not sure if you have had an answer on the other thread - if not the first thing I would ask is if you make this F&F offer will you be able to afford to repay your family member whilst on your DMP? (your repayments will have to come out of somewhere in your budget as they won't be part of the official DMP).

Have you been defaulted on these small debts yet? You usually won't get good F&F percentages until you have been defaulted - and you get the really low deals one your debts have been sold on to a third party. If you are only just starting the DMP it may be a little soon to get the best offers.

HTH

maeeve

Thanks for your answer Tixy i wouldnt have to pay the family member back, not just yet anyway, i have a very generous FIL (If only he knew everything about CCCS!) So that wouldnt be a problem. I think one of them has been defaulted, my egg cca has been passed onto someone else, and i have been on this DMP for about 3 years now.
???????

Deep_In_Debt

Hi

You can often get lower settlements if the debts have been sold on to a DCA as DCA's generally buy them for pennies in the £. When I tried to make a F&F during my dmp, the original creditor would accept nothing less than 70% of the outstanding amount whereas the DCA accepted 30% and I'm sure I could have done better than that.

Tixy

If you haven't already done so look at this link for info on F&Fs (you will be better to say the money is coming from a relative -which in your case it is)
http://www.nationaldebtline.co.uk/england_wales/factsheet.php?page=24_full_and_final_settlement_offers

(sorry I see your post said you had been on the dmp a while -I scan read first time)

Deep_In_Debt

You could say that you will only have this money for a short period of time and then the offer will be withdrawn, say after 28 days, so if they don't accept it then you will offer it to another creditor. You may find they bite your arm off for it...

As Tixy says, check out the National Debtline website for some good advice on this and a template letter you can use.

maeeve

Thankyou. Just another qhick question. How much do you think i should offer at first on a £347 debt? and do you think i should try the abbey first or the debt that has been passed onto cabot finance (ogigianlly with egg)?