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debtdawg

Thanks James (I've been stalking this thread today lol)

I have just printed out evidence of income and outgoings and have filled in my DMP application. I also sorted out an old bank account this morning that I'd forgotten about, which isn't linked to any of my creditors and have arranged for my income to go into there - now to sort out the bill payments to go out of there also!

I have debts with Lloyds and both myself and my husband bank there. Would Lloyds be able to take money from his sole account for my debts?

When should I send the letter to Lloyds to let them know that we're starting a DMP?

Thank you x

callistris

Hi

I sent off my paperwork to you last week for my new DMP.

How long does it take to hear back from you to say it's all set up?

As I have a few PDL's and they are calling me constantly demanding all sorts of details regarding my DMP, info which I just don't have and they refuse to contact you quoting my reference number!

It's getting annoying as they keep ringing me at work, and I want to keep this private from my work colleagues, but the more times they call the more chances there are that someone will find out at work:o

StepChange_James

debtdawg wrote: »

Thanks James (I've been stalking this thread today lol)

I have just printed out evidence of income and outgoings and have filled in my DMP application. I also sorted out an old bank account this morning that I'd forgotten about, which isn't linked to any of my creditors and have arranged for my income to go into there - now to sort out the bill payments to go out of there also!

I have debts with Lloyds and both myself and my husband bank there. Would Lloyds be able to take money from his sole account for my debts?

When should I send the letter to Lloyds to let them know that we're starting a DMP?

Thank you x

To be on the safe side I'd suggest holding back on sending Lloyds TSB your letter until you know you won’t be needing to use that bank account anymore, which will be once you know all your direct debits and income payments are on the account you're moving to.

Lloyds TSB can take money from any account you're named on to pay debts that are in your name. So if your husband’s account is in just his name and the debts are in just your name then Lloyds TSB should leave his account alone.

Kind regards

James

StepChange_James

callistris wrote: »

Hi

I sent off my paperwork to you last week for my new DMP.

How long does it take to hear back from you to say it's all set up?

As I have a few PDL's and they are calling me constantly demanding all sorts of details regarding my DMP, info which I just don't have and they refuse to contact you quoting my reference number!

It's getting annoying as they keep ringing me at work, and I want to keep this private from my work colleagues, but the more times they call the more chances there are that someone will find out at work:o

Hello,

If it was last week you sent in paperwork then we should be in touch with you in the next few days. If all the paperwork is in order then you will get a letter confirming the start date.

I'd suggest that you contact the creditors that are calling you at work and explain that continuing to call you there could put your job at risk and ask them to remove that number from their system. If they ignore this (which they shouldn't) you could then make a formal complaint to the company. If that didn't stop them you could refer the complaint to the financial ombudsman, though I'd be very surprised if you needed to go that far.

We've a blogpost about dealing with creditor calls here: http://moneyaware.co.uk/2011/06/what-to-do-when-creditors-keep-phoning-you-2/.

Hope this helps.


James

lewis3295

I have a relaitively small debt just arrived on my doorstep. apparently when i left Npower over a year ago there was a balance of £74.84. Today i receive a letter labelled 'Doorstep agent visit'. I call them up to discuss and accepted that i probably did owe a similar amount and i am prepared to pay it back. I offered a monthly payment (which they accepted), however i do not get paid until the 20th of the month and they are not willing to wait that long for an initial payment. I explained to them that i have a family of four to support and really struggling financially this month and any money i have in my account (which isn't alot) is to put food on the table and buy nappies. The response is simple, they need a payment now or an agent will visit my home. I have asked to speak to a manager and have been told that his response will be the same but he will call me anyway... still waiting

symesd

We have been struggling with debt for what seems like a life time, have made lots of mistakes along the way but now completely focussed on Clearing the Debts.

I have been working on a Self Managed Debt Management Plan over the last 8 months and have managed to get 14 Creditors Set up in the plan who have agreed and provided their bank details, 3 would not agree to the plan but have managed to set up outside the plan on a reasonable monthly payment and 9 remaining creditors left to organise, but struggling with these as the debt has been passed on several time and I have lost track of some of them, do not know how to proceed - how to I find out who the debt is with and who it originated from. Mainly due to me not being able to cope with dealing with them, constant letters, e-mails, txt and visits have worn me down. But I have an interview next week for a new job which if I get will increase our income and give up more money to play with - fingers crossed.

We used to be with CCCS, but because we did not include all our debts in the plan they stopped the DMP this was about 18 months ago and I now feel I am starting to get a handle on the debts again now.

How do I find out who the missing debts are being looked after, I have not had any letters or contact from some of them so I am struggling. I am basically waiting for them to contact me now and adding them as I go.

Does anyone have any tips please on a self managed plan, I have an excellent Bank Account with Think Money who keep our money separate for bills so nothing gets missed and we only have access to money which is not needed for bills, so once a standing order has been set up its all done and takes care of itself.

I have even managed to get some significant settlement figures from a couple of the debts and managed to pay off 3 of our creditors in last 8 months and have got 2 more offers to pay off at 28% of the original debt (but just don't have the funds yet to do this)

I just wish there was a mortgage company who would consider taking us on as there are so many mortgages out there with much lower rates which would mean we would have more money to
pay off our debts - we have a main mortgage with Britannia (4.74% fixed til 2015) and a massive £20k second mortgage with Welcome finance which is crippling us - if we could combine these and reduce the monthly payments we would be able to pay off the debts in no time at all - we have a good income now and it is so annoying that a problem we had in 2005 - redundancy/unemployment for 2 years has ruined the last 7 years of our lives and it will probably take the best part of 15 years to clear the debts at this rate at the very earliest.

Anyone know of a mortgage company who would look at current circumstances and see we are now stable and good payers - and realise the bad debt was due to something that happened over 7 years ago and give us a break so we can be normal again.

StepChange_James

lewis3295 wrote: »

I have a relaitively small debt just arrived on my doorstep. apparently when i left Npower over a year ago there was a balance of £74.84. Today i receive a letter labelled 'Doorstep agent visit'. I call them up to discuss and accepted that i probably did owe a similar amount and i am prepared to pay it back. I offered a monthly payment (which they accepted), however i do not get paid until the 20th of the month and they are not willing to wait that long for an initial payment. I explained to them that i have a family of four to support and really struggling financially this month and any money i have in my account (which isn't alot) is to put food on the table and buy nappies. The response is simple, they need a payment now or an agent will visit my home. I have asked to speak to a manager and have been told that his response will be the same but he will call me anyway... still waiting

Hi Lewis,

Welcome to the forum. It sounds like you have done everything right so far with this one. I know many debt collectors are keen for immediate payments because they are used to people making promises that they don't stick to (often because they weren't realistic in the first place).

If you can find any money to make a small initial payment that may help you, but it is really important that you don't give them any money that you need to support you and your family. If they threaten you with door step collectors again you can tell them to go ahead with it.

Door step debt collectors aren't bailiffs, so if one visits your property you are well within your rights to tell them to go away without making any payment to them. They can't take anything away and they can't be violent or intimidating (they'd be likely to lose their job if this happened).

In reality threats of sending door step collectors are often not carried through, so they might be bluffing. We have a blogpost about doorstep collectors here: http://moneyaware.co.uk/2012/06/debt-collectors-are-not-bailiffs/.

Hope this helps.

James

StepChange_James

symesd wrote: »

We have been struggling with debt for what seems like a life time, have made lots of mistakes along the way but now completely focussed on Clearing the Debts.

I have been working on a Self Managed Debt Management Plan over the last 8 months and have managed to get 14 Creditors Set up in the plan who have agreed and provided their bank details, 3 would not agree to the plan but have managed to set up outside the plan on a reasonable monthly payment and 9 remaining creditors left to organise, but struggling with these as the debt has been passed on several time and I have lost track of some of them, do not know how to proceed - how to I find out who the debt is with and who it originated from. Mainly due to me not being able to cope with dealing with them, constant letters, e-mails, txt and visits have worn me down. But I have an interview next week for a new job which if I get will increase our income and give up more money to play with - fingers crossed.

We used to be with CCCS, but because we did not include all our debts in the plan they stopped the DMP this was about 18 months ago and I now feel I am starting to get a handle on the debts again now.

How do I find out who the missing debts are being looked after, I have not had any letters or contact from some of them so I am struggling. I am basically waiting for them to contact me now and adding them as I go.

Does anyone have any tips please on a self managed plan, I have an excellent Bank Account with Think Money who keep our money separate for bills so nothing gets missed and we only have access to money which is not needed for bills, so once a standing order has been set up its all done and takes care of itself.

I have even managed to get some significant settlement figures from a couple of the debts and managed to pay off 3 of our creditors in last 8 months and have got 2 more offers to pay off at 28% of the original debt (but just don't have the funds yet to do this)

I just wish there was a mortgage company who would consider taking us on as there are so many mortgages out there with much lower rates which would mean we would have more money to
pay off our debts - we have a main mortgage with Britannia (4.74% fixed til 2015) and a massive £20k second mortgage with Welcome finance which is crippling us - if we could combine these and reduce the monthly payments we would be able to pay off the debts in no time at all - we have a good income now and it is so annoying that a problem we had in 2005 - redundancy/unemployment for 2 years has ruined the last 7 years of our lives and it will probably take the best part of 15 years to clear the debts at this rate at the very earliest.

Anyone know of a mortgage company who would look at current circumstances and see we are now stable and good payers - and realise the bad debt was due to something that happened over 7 years ago and give us a break so we can be normal again.

Hello,

Getting a copy of your credit report would probably be the easiest way to get an up to date picture of what is happening with your debts. This article talks you through how to order a copy and what it means too: http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/loans/credit-rating-credit-score.

Generally speaking we advise against remortgaging to pay off unsecured debts, as we speak to many people who have tried this and it has made their situation worse.

As for tips, it can be very hard to keep track of a self managed payment plan but one thing I know has worked for other people I have spoken to is to use plastic wallets to organise your letters from your debts. This tends to make it easier to keep track of which company is dealing with what debt.

Hope this helps.

James

symesd

CCCS_James wrote: »

Hello,


Generally speaking we advise against remortgaging to pay off unsecured debts, as we speak to many people who have tried this and it has made their situation worse.


James

Hi James thanks for your reply, when I am speaking about re-mortgaging this is not to pay off debts but to combine my current Mortgage (Britannia - £468) and Second Mortgaged (Welcome Finance £392) to reduce these payments each month - making more money available to pay off debts. I am currently paying £860 just for my mortgage - if this could be reduced to about £547 (which is what we would be paying if all 1 mortgage on same interest rate) I would have about £300 extra to pay off debts.

For example - If Britannia would add our £20k to our existing mortgage it would cost approx £79 a month -

We have been with them for over 7 years and have even managed to make overpayments to them for 14 months previously & never been in arrears, so they know we are good payers, but they will not look at us due to our history - Why do financial institutions not take into consideration your current circumstances - our debts are from 7 years ago.

Its just so frustrating - the financial institutions just reply on computers and credit history and ignore current situations and history with them.

I have now been in a permanent job for almost 5 years and want to get my debts sorted but paying very expensive interest rates is crippling us - people with good credit get the best rates I know but would it not make sense to help people like us pay off the debts if we can prove that the bad credit is "history" not current ...

needhelpnow_2

My mother is 81 and has got herself into a mess with credit cards and loans (mostly taken out to support my brother but that's another matter!). She has now been diagnosed with cancer and has just given me an envelope of statements!

She lives in the Wirral, is there any help she could get preferably by someone going to see her (or I could organise for her to go somewhere). I suspect she is probably due benefits as well but has never claimed anything.