Struggling with debt? Ask a debt advisor a question

tiesteelm

mje79 wrote: »

Hello Debt Busters,

Need to pick your brains as I'm not sure if I'm being taken for a ride. I've been in a debt managment programme for about three years and I've just had a letter from Gregory Pennington with an update. I pay £255.00 a month and am being told i'll be debt free in 39 months but the will also charge me £1491.75 in the process. Is there any way I can get this cost down? or indeed get them to work harder in reducing the debt? Or is there another company I can use?

Kind regards

Mike Edwards

I was using GP to help me get rid of my 16K debt. After realising that they take £50 out of the £300 for charges I changed to PayPlan.
They do not charge you for their service, you get an online account so you can see where your money is going. I would recommend them to anyone wanting to get DEBT FREE, and because of their help I have just paiud my final ammount of £40 to make myslef Debt free.

Hope this helps.

Martin:)

bandit199

hi
advice needed
in 2006 i got a car on finace paid most of it and then car went back after they sent some one to collect it, today i recieved a letter from debt recovery company i never heard off and i called the number and spoke to adviser and they said i owe x amount on the car from 2006, i said i have no knowledge of this has the car went back but they said they will look into it but because i called them they said they can now keep it open for another 6 years has it was not full 6 years and if i waited to march 2012 then it would off been written off but i called them, can i just leave it now and not make any more contact to them and after march 2012 will the debt then be written off anyway?
they told me they will reduce the debt if i make payment arrangement which im not willing to do has the company they say is a company i have not heard off or even dealt with before unless its a name change they have done since i had a car on finance, would i have to pay it anyway or can i just ignore them has from now and let it run to march 2012 and then will that be end of it or are they right has i called them it will now stand for another 6 years and i will have to pay it

willy111

Hiya.
Advice needed.
On a dmp plan with payplan,that is going nicely,but i have a car with ford credit that i couldn't afford to pay the balloon payment of £4360,but i can't afford to hand it back.
Had a phone call from link financial the other day to whom the debt has been passed.
Any ideas of my options as i can afford to pay a bit a month to them,but i don't want to hand it back or have the car taken off me.

sickasachip13

mje79 wrote: »

Hello Debt Busters,

Need to pick your brains as I'm not sure if I'm being taken for a ride. I've been in a debt managment programme for about three years and I've just had a letter from Gregory Pennington with an update. I pay £255.00 a month and am being told i'll be debt free in 39 months but the will also charge me £1491.75 in the process. Is there any way I can get this cost down? or indeed get them to work harder in reducing the debt? Or is there another company I can use?

Kind regards

Mike Edwards

Hi

Please move to CCCS or Payplan. CCCS is a charity who can provide you with a DMP free of charge - so more ££ is freed to actually pay off the debt.

The best advice for anyone looking at DMP is to absolutely avoid any company that is going to charge you for it.

Best of luck

SAAC

sickasachip13

Sillygirl wrote: »

Hello,
We have got ourselves into a real sticky situation. We have lots of debt, which we have always managed to pay without problem. However my husband lost his job earlier in the year, he has just accepted another job but at a lower salary with much higher travel expenses, on top of this I am just going back to work after maternity leave so overall we have a lots more going out with less coming in. We have Bernard living on our savings and haven't missed any payments. I have calculated, being thrifty and cancelling non essentials like satellite etc. That we would have about £400 left to pay about £900 of loans, overdrafts and ccs. Would be accepted on any plans? Is there anything we can do? We run one car, value about £150. And haven't got any equity on house etc ...

Hi,

I'm not a credit expert but just thought I'd chip in - do you mean a DMP? If you do then we had less disposable income than that when we started ours a year ago. A charity like the CCCS (who'll be on the thread shortly) will work out your income and expenditure and identify an appropriate level of payment to your debts. I urge you to contact them - they have a debt remedy tool on their website that you might find useful.

BTW, I did a short blog for CCCS's moneyaware site about going on a DMP, you might find it useful. The first part, with a link to the second, can be found here:

http://moneyaware.co.uk/2011/09/my-debt-hell/

Best of luck

SAAC

gingerbreadgirl_2

I have £20k of debt which I have managed to reduce down from £30k. I have the debt over 3 sources - 2 loans and a credit card. At the moment it is taking up about 70% of my salary which is making life a big struggle. I am paying the monthly amounts and the minimum amount on the credit card but I am continuing to increase the debt on the credit card as I don't have enough to live on. I know it is my own fault but that doesn't help me solve the problem now...what's done is done!

I would like to know if there is something else I can be doing to clear these debts quicker. i work full time already and have a small child so can't do any extra work.

Your advice would be a great help!

StepChange_Pavan

Tinkerbe11 wrote: »

Sorry if this is long and complicated but looking for some advice on how to best consolidate mine and my partner’s debts. Combined we owe just under £15000 on credit cards and the repayments are taking a really large part of our income although we are managing (just about) to meet them but paying little over the minimum every month. We own our property and are currently just paying the interest on our mortgage which is with Northern Rock (now NRAM who no longer have a loaning license so can’t increase the mortgage or whatever). Our credit rating really isn’t great and we have been turned down for a personal loan with Halifax. I have looked at getting a secure loan but Ocean Finance refused us, as the amount we’d need to borrow (£15000) as it would mean it takes us up to more or less 100% of the value of our property. They did refer us to various other loan companies but I’m a bit reluctant to use them. One of the other issues I think we may have is that on paper it looks as if we have far less income then we actually do, as I am in full time employment but my partner is a stay at home dad, however we do get an extra £800 a month, every month, from his mum but I doubt that any loan company would actually recognise this as additional income so when they are looking at the figures we probably look like we wouldn’t meet the repayments. Any advice on a way to consolidate our debts and lower our repayments without further damaging our credit rating by getting refused again and again!?

Hi Tinkerbe11 and welcome to the forum


It’s difficult to give thorough advice without looking at your situation in more detail. However, from what you’ve said it’s likely that you’ll find it difficult to find a creditor that will lend to you at a reasonable rate. We usually find that consolidation loans aren’t always the best solution anyway as they can make your circumstances worse in the long term.

I’d recommend that you come to us so that we can look at your situation as a whole and explore all of the solutions that are available to you.

You can visit our online debt advice service Debt Remedy (http://www.cccs.co.uk/ref/drcu) which will help you to compile a budget. You’ll receive a downloadable advice booklet providing a tailored solution for you based on your current circumstances and advice on ways you may be able to improve your situation.

If you’d prefer you can call our free Helpline on 0800 138 1111. We’re open Monday to Friday 8am - 8pm. It may be possible to refer you directly to a counsellor for immediate advice. Alternatively, we will arrange for an appointment to be booked at a time convenient for you.

Kind regards,
Pavan

StepChange_Pavan

mje79 wrote: »

Hello Debt Busters,

Need to pick your brains as I'm not sure if I'm being taken for a ride. I've been in a debt managment programme for about three years and I've just had a letter from Gregory Pennington with an update. I pay £255.00 a month and am being told i'll be debt free in 39 months but the will also charge me £1491.75 in the process. Is there any way I can get this cost down? or indeed get them to work harder in reducing the debt? Or is there another company I can use?

Kind regards

Mike Edwards

Hi Mike and thanks for your post.

We are a charity that administers debt management plans completely free of charge. Like others have mentioned, the fee that you’re paying to the DMP company could be going towards reducing your debts quicker.

If you’d like us to look at you situation in more detail, you can either use our online advice tool, Debt Remedy (http://www.cccs.co.uk/ref/drcu) or call our free Helpline on 0800 138 1111. We’re open Monday to Friday 8am - 8pm.

I hope this helps.

Kind regards,
Pavan

StepChange_Pavan

OsborneSaint wrote: »

Hi,

Please bare with me as i'm a newbie to this site. I'm not sure if this is the correct place to post but here goes.

My current situation is as follows and I wondered if anyone had any advice as to get my debt level down or whether i'm already on the right track.

I have a personal loan (£20k over 7 years with halifax) that I have had for a year now paying £390 a month.

I also have some credit card debt as follows: £1500 on a 0% interest halifax credit card paying the minimum, £6000 on an old now 0% interest for 9 months halifax credit card paying the minimum.

Now here is the tricky bit, my partner and I are getting married next year and i have around £12,500 in shares that are about to come in. I planned to use the shares to pay for the wedding but should i do something different with this money? Do i pay off debt and then use credit again when i need it for the wedding?

I ultimately want to get my debt repayments down as they are currently at £450 ish in total. Any ideas on what's best?

Thank you very much in advance.

Hi OsborneSaint and thanks for your post.

This is a tricky one, as we don’t advise on getting into more debt. Martin Lewis always advises to pay off existing debts with any savings (http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/savings/pay-off-debts), so the best advice is probably to do that and then save as much as possible towards the wedding beforehand.

There’s lots of ways to save money on weddings, and it could be a good way of spending less and owing less in the long term.

I hope this helps.

Kind regards,
Pavan

StepChange_Pavan

pinknoodle wrote: »

Please help! Over the past year and a half I have been paying off my council tax debt through baliffs Goodwillie and Corcoran. After checking how much was outstanding I discovered that infact i have overpaid them by approx £400. When I rang them they fobed me off, I have sent them bank statements by fax, email and post to prove what I have paid but they will not give me any answers as to why there is a discrepency in our figures. Can anyone advise how I can get this money back?

Hi pinknoodle and welcome to the forum


They should explain where the extra money has gone. I’d recommend that you follow their complaints procedure and if you’re not happy with their response you can escalate it to the Financial Ombudsman.

Hope this helps.

Kind regards,
Pavan