Struggling with debt? Ask a debt advisor a question

Fishikiss

Hi I was wondering where i stand with a debt i have with Natwest. I have requested on numerous occasions including when the loan was originally taken out for a copy of the signed agreement as this was never originally supplied. I am now in debt of £17,766 due to the breakdown of my marriage and having to stay home to care for my disabled daughter and my ex went bankrupt. I am paying them £1 a month but they have sold the debt on twice in the last 4 months. I heard that if they do not provide this i can ask for the debt to be written off. Is this true?

Any help would be greatfully accepted.

lend_me_a_tenner_bud

CCCS_Mat wrote: »

Hi lend me a tenner bud and welcome to the forum.

I’d recommend you send the letter again recorded/registered delivery and request that they only contact you in writing and also request that they remove your telephone numbers from their contact list.

If you send it registered/recorded you have proof that they have received it.

It might take a while for them to update their systems.

You can use the template letter below if you like. It’s important that you also enclose your income and expenditure so the creditors can see why you are making the reduced payment.

Dear Sir/Madam

I am writing to ask that you no longer contact me by telephone as your calls are causing me considerable stress due to the frequency, and that they are being made at inappropriate times. Please remove my telephone number from your database and send all future communication in writing to my home address.

I have provided the most recent copy of my income and expenditure to make you aware of my current financial situation. I will continue to make my payment of x on the x of every month and will keep you informed of any changes in my circumstances as I am keen to resolve this issue as soon as possible.

I understand that following this request if you continue to call I can contact the Office of Fair Trading to make a formal complaint.

Please confirm in writing that your records have been amended.

Yours sincerely

I hope this helps.

Kind regards
Mat

Cheers Mat, thanks for the advice I post another letter to them yesterday recorded.

pilky

I have a couple of questions and would be so grateful if you could offer advice or guidance.

I bank with RBS, I have my current account with them a credit card and my mortgage.

When I was made redundant 6 months ago I requested RBS switch my mortgage to Interest only (instead of Capital and Interest) until I find another job - they declined - so I am really struggling to pay my mortgage. I also have an overdraft of £5,000 which I am being charged £75 per month interest, again, I am really struggling to pay this, but I don't want my credit rating affected - as it stands my credit rating does not have any late payments or defaults on.

lostc

Hi there, I hope you can offer me some advice :beer:

I currently have 3 credit cards, all up-to-date, no history of being naughty, clean credit file. 2 of the 3 creditors have decided to raise interest rates and minimum repayments over the last year, effectively doubling interest rates and raising repayments by 1% making it extremely difficult for me to make reasonable repayments on top of interest charged.

The total owed is £30k, 15k (Virgin Money), 11k (Barclaycard) and 4k (American Express). With the most recent monthly payment restructure by Virgin Money and yet another interest rate rise proposed by Barclaycard, I am looking at over 1k in minimum payments per month.

Having assessed the cost of rent, commute cost, food and so forth, these changes will certainly put me deeper into the red with all my previous savings already used up over the last year to cover interest rate rise and increase in living costs (and I am already living as basic as one can be). It did not help when I started using my AMEX to cover the deficit but having seen the amount I owe them, I think enough is enough.

My company has also recently announced redundancy in the pipeline (circa 2 months) and I certainly won't be getting anything out of them as I have been with them for just less than 2 years so it puts me in an awkward situation.

I have considered the routes of DMP, IVA and bankruptcy but I have been advised by friends that this will have an adverse effect on my career and qualifications. With redundancy due soon, DMP and IVA would almost certainly be ruled out.

One proposed option from a friend was for him to help me with a lump sum, although that is in the region of 10-14k, not even half of the 30k I owe. He has suggested that I go down the Full and Final Settlement Offer route with this lump sum? Is this ideal? Are there any alternatives?

Thanks in advance!

BICHARD

Yes you are right
good post

phillipson_2

hi, can you tell me if you can find anything about clark richards? its a debt management company im with but im begining to think they are not legit, HELP!

nem39esis

Hi, Ive managed to rack up a sizeable debt on credit cards over the years. Not all are bad, some are on cards with 0% offers and others rate for life. However i decided that the only way to clear it completely was to have it all in one place on one rate and pay off as much as possible every month to get rid of it. I initially applied for a loan with my bank. Prior to doing this i checked my credit reports on all 3 companies. Allw as good, no bad marks at all and credit scores all came out good. I applied for a 14k personal loan over 5 years to consolidate my credit cards. I was rejected. I asked for reasons why but kept getting told it was based on my credit file which i asked for further clarifcation but was ignored repeatedly with the same letter. This is being investigated by the banks complaintes department, but theyre taking months. However, this leaves me in the same situation. I applied for a credit card the other day for its 0% offer and was turned down. I now worry that because of this loan application and the ammount of debt over my cards, i can't get any further cards to move debts around at better rates and so my debt will increase rather than decrease when the offers run out on the cards i have.

For info here what i have so far
£1800 at 20%apr
£4000 at 16% apr
£4000 at 0% untill july (16% after)
£1500 at 0% untill september (16% after)
£3800 at 4.98% for life
£1500 overdraft at 19%
£1450 overdraft currently 0%

total = +18k

I have a mortgage at a good rate which is costing £480 a month, i live with my girlfriend and shes on the mortgage also. I make 27k a year and so does she.

Whats my best solution? Was i refused the loan because of the card debts totalling so much?

rsjg80

Can you help?!

I'm trying to 'find' my debts. I know I used to have two debts with Barclays (Overdraft/ Credit Card) two with MBNA (Credit Cards) and one with Capital One (Credit Card) but used DebtAdvisoryLine for a while before getting rid of them.

Since then I've not known who to pay and no-one's asking for anything. I've written to all the original creditors and no reply. I looked at my Equifax Credit Report and they're all there and with original creditors but, despite being updated recently, nothing seems to be happening with them. They defaulted ages back and are 'white' since or are just 'red' every month to date.

What's going on? I want to attempt to negotiate full and finals but can't if no-one has the debt!!

StepChange_Pavan

LouiseG1 wrote: »

Hello there,

I am new to the forum and would appreciate any advice you can give me on the above. Basically my debts have spiralled out of control and i am in the process of trying to make arrangements with creditors. I am having to do this independently as myself and my ex partner have a Together mortgage with Northern Rock which means that part of the mortgage is on an unsecured element. I wanted to go down an IVA route, but was advised i couldnt just put my personal debt in ie credit cards and loans and would have to put the unsecured part of the mortgage in too if i wanted to go down this route.
Unfortunatley he works in financial services and therefore as this is in a joint name he cant have any bad credit at all as is credit checked annually and would lose his job.
Anyway we have recently broken up and i need to move out and start renting a flat on my own. He will not be able to remortgage into his name and take me off the mortgage as we are in negative equity. Therefore for the near future i will have to stay on the mortgage.

Some of my debtors have said that the only way for me to come to an arrangement is for the account to go into default and there collections will contact me to arrange a suitable payment.

I just needed to know how gas and electricty companies viewed defaults and if i would still would be able to get these utilites (without a meter) with defaults showing on my credit file.

Any help at all is much appreciated

Thanks in advance.

Hi LouiseG1 and thank you for your post.

Is your ex partner able to maintain the payments by himself? If he could keep the payments up to date, you wouldn’t need to budget for this and his credit wouldn’t be affected.

I don’t have access to your information but if you’d like to send us a private message with your client reference number we can look into your case in a bit more detail.

With regards to your utilities; some companies have started to share information such as defaults – there is more information about which companies share data here: http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/loans/credit-rating-credit-score.

However not all companies will check this information and you should be ok to set up an account especially if you are able to put down a deposit or set up a direct debit.

I hope this helps.

Kind regards,
Pavan

StepChange_Pavan

Fishikiss wrote: »

Hi I was wondering where i stand with a debt i have with Natwest. I have requested on numerous occasions including when the loan was originally taken out for a copy of the signed agreement as this was never originally supplied. I am now in debt of £17,766 due to the breakdown of my marriage and having to stay home to care for my disabled daughter and my ex went bankrupt. I am paying them £1 a month but they have sold the debt on twice in the last 4 months. I heard that if they do not provide this i can ask for the debt to be written off. Is this true?

Any help would be greatfully accepted.

Hi Fishikiss and welcome to the forum.

Unfortunately if you remember taking out the debt and know that you are liable to pay, it’s unlikely to be written off. If the debt is proved to be unenforceable because they haven’t provided the original agreement, the debt still exists and you should make an arrangement to pay it at a rate that you can afford.

If you’d like us to look at your situation in more detail so that we can advise on the options that are available to you, I’d recommend that you use our online advice facility Debt Remedy. Alternatively you can ring our free Helpline on 0800 138 1111 to book a telephone appointment with a counsellor.

I hope this helps.

Kind regards,
Pavan