DMP Mutual Support Thread - Part 7

Twit_Head

magenta22 wrote: »

I enquired with payplan about a year ago and in all honesty didn't find them very helpful.

Every question I asked I either got that they didn't know or an answer which didn't instil me with confidence.
They also contacted my creditors without my consent and approval which has now resulted in suspended accounts which isn't a bad thing because I can't use them but I didn't have the cards anyway as I sent them back so that I couldn't use them anyway. But I then ended up with calls everyday threatening this that and the other - mainly by MBNA.

CCCS made an appointment and then didn't call.

I know people who have done a DMP and used a pay for service, they don't even pay the creditors on time so then charges are added!

I am now back to struggling.

Hi magenta22
As I've said before on this thread and keep banging on about, I do think it helps to take some control yourself. If you are fairly comperate literate have you tried doing the CCCS on-line debt remedy? Gather together all your bills, outgoings, incomings etc, take a deep breath and go throught it item by item. It is a fantastic tool to judge exactly how you stand. If you think a DMP may be a solution for you, you can continue on-line or chose to speak to a counsellor. (Sorry, can't advise re: Payplan but others on this thread manage well with them.)
Please don't struggle - it's your debt, your future - grab it by the scruff of the neck and shake some sense into it!
People here are helpful and friendly. Have a read and come back to post any questions etc.
Good Luck.

'Twitty'

hollybabes

Well, me and my wife decided it was time to stop struggling to make ends meet each month and bite the bullet and sort out our debt problems (we owe about £34,000 :eek: in total after years of living off credit to pay our debts..sinking deeper and deeper. )
Me and my wife just rushed through the debt remedy form with CCCS without realising this would be used as a basis for all the settlements. We missed off a few small catalogues we owe and mistakenly thought one loan was secured when it wasnt...*sigh*

After starting the ball rolling over the weekend and deciding to start a DMP, we were hoping to get it all in place for the 1st of september, as were off on holiday to cornwall for a week. Felt great knowing we might have peace of mind that we were facing the problem and could relax at the end of each month knowing everyone was being paid.
I now feel so stressed that we've messed up all our figures. Im going to try and ring cccs tonight and sort it all out.

All our letters are ready to send to the creditor's, and we're in the process of sorting out a new bank account before sending them off. As our morgage, overdraft and one of our loans are with who we hold our account with.

Im just basically stressed and worried now about what order to do everything in..:(
Do we cancel all our direct debits before our new banks sorted out? Do we send out our letter to the creditor's now? or wait till everythings sorted with cccs, and the bank account's in place?
Should i send our token payments off with the letters to the creditors, if i do, i assume i need another letter to explain its a token payment as well as the one explaining were trying to get onto a DMP.

Is the secured loan we DO have listed as a creditor? I assume not as its a priority bill...

Sorry for rambling on...Ive done nothing but worry all day at work about not being able to get through to cccs when i get home from work at 6..

Twit_Head

He-he - I'm back!
Hospital yesterday for tests. Got to see consultant in 2 weeks, and then further scans etc.
Have been very frightened lately with the sudden deterioration of my normally very,fit condition,after a heart attack a few years ago.
But God Bless the NHS! (Bl**dy hell and I work for them!) I know we all pay for it in a round-about way but where would we be on a restricted budget without the 'free' point of contact? Like America maybe - 'What's in your wallet???' before we treat you?
Thanks to all of you for your support. :beer:
And maybe I've found a way to clear my DMP sooner!
Because I'm so out of puff at the moment, I might just sign up to provide my services to one of those 'heavy breathing' naughty phone lines :rotfl:
Yea - explain that one away on 'any other income'

'Twitty'

Loubylou2

Good luck with all your tests Twitty and thanks for your ongoing support.

I need a bit more help please. We've just made our second payment via Payplan. Its been quite quiet correspndence wise which is also very disoncerting in a way. Well we've had one default notice and a phone call from Natwest saying they've forwarded our case to a different dept.

Anyway we were looking on Justabank at all the figures and realised that Tesco have lumped all the future interest on to the figure they submitted to Payplan. Therefore the amount they are getting is bigger than Nat West even though the debt should be similar. (both very large loans)I've also looked today on our account at Justabank and it shows that Tesco have accepted the amount we are paying. (We've actually had NO correspondence at all from Tesco) Well thats not surprising as its almost what we were paying before!

Payplan told OH that that does happen but that they would contact Tesco. But they haven't got back to us about it.
My worries are that the amount to Tesco is a huge chunk so leaves a much smaller proportion to Nat Nest infact its a lot lower than we were paying them before so surely they will be very unlikely to accept our payment plan?

Has this sort of thing happened to anyone else? Should we be contacting Tesco to query this. Any advice would be gratefully received.
Thanks everyone:)

powerchimp

hollybabes wrote: »

Well, me and my wife decided it was time to stop struggling to make ends meet each month and bite the bullet and sort out our debt problems (we owe about £34,000 :eek: in total after years of living off credit to pay our debts..sinking deeper and deeper. )
Me and my wife just rushed through the debt remedy form with CCCS without realising this would be used as a basis for all the settlements. We missed off a few small catalogues we owe and mistakenly thought one loan was secured when it wasnt...*sigh*

After starting the ball rolling over the weekend and deciding to start a DMP, we were hoping to get it all in place for the 1st of september, as were off on holiday to cornwall for a week. Felt great knowing we might have peace of mind that we were facing the problem and could relax at the end of each month knowing everyone was being paid.
I now feel so stressed that we've messed up all our figures. Im going to try and ring cccs tonight and sort it all out.

All our letters are ready to send to the creditor's, and we're in the process of sorting out a new bank account before sending them off. As our morgage, overdraft and one of our loans are with who we hold our account with.

Im just basically stressed and worried now about what order to do everything in..:(
Do we cancel all our direct debits before our new banks sorted out? Do we send out our letter to the creditor's now? or wait till everythings sorted with cccs, and the bank account's in place?
Should i send our token payments off with the letters to the creditors, if i do, i assume i need another letter to explain its a token payment as well as the one explaining were trying to get onto a DMP.

Is the secured loan we DO have listed as a creditor? I assume not as its a priority bill...

Sorry for rambling on...Ive done nothing but worry all day at work about not being able to get through to cccs when i get home from work at 6..

I can only tell you of my own experiences of setting up our DMP.

At the beginning of July we realised that we were in trouble and had to do something about it.

We did the CCCS remedy form and missed one creditor off and added one that shouldn't have been on there, CCCS were good and can change the form at their end.

Because of an overdraft we had to change banks and this took longer that anticipated so we couldn't get set up for the 1st August, this meant 2 lots of token payments.

We sent this letter with an added paragraph saying that we were only sending token payments as well. Most creditors didn't response but two did but said they couldn't do anything.

Once the new bank a/c was set and all wages were going in, we send letters to all the creditors to inform them of the DMP.

Some are moaning that CCCS hasn't been in touch yet but we will just ride that out until they do.

CCCS have send us all the details for the DMP and the first payment goes out of the 1st September.

Talking to CCCS help to ease a lot of the worried and it has been frustrating at the length of time it has taken but hopefully it will be worth it in the end.

the_tooth_fairy

Loubylou2 wrote: »

Good luck with all your tests Twitty and thanks for your ongoing support.

I need a bit more help please. We've just made our second payment via Payplan. Its been quite quiet correspndence wise which is also very disoncerting in a way. Well we've had one default notice and a phone call from Natwest saying they've forwarded our case to a different dept.

Anyway we were looking on Justabank at all the figures and realised that Tesco have lumped all the future interest on to the figure they submitted to Payplan. Therefore the amount they are getting is bigger than Nat West even though the debt should be similar. (both very large loans)I've also looked today on our account at Justabank and it shows that Tesco have accepted the amount we are paying. (We've actually had NO correspondence at all from Tesco) Well thats not surprising as its almost what we were paying before!

Payplan told OH that that does happen but that they would contact Tesco. But they haven't got back to us about it.
My worries are that the amount to Tesco is a huge chunk so leaves a much smaller proportion to Nat Nest infact its a lot lower than we were paying them before so surely they will be very unlikely to accept our payment plan?

Has this sort of thing happened to anyone else? Should we be contacting Tesco to query this. Any advice would be gratefully received.
Thanks everyone:)

Yes, that happened to us. Halifax were our biggest creditor, and they landed £6K of interest on at the start. For us, it meant they got an even bigger cut than the rest of the bunch, however the others didn't seem to mind, even though it was, as you say, lower than the minimum!
It seems to me that as long as they are getting regular payments that bring the debt down, then they are OK. We received a snotogram from Halifax on Saturday, telling us our 'arrangement' was about to come to an end!! I called them back to give a bit of my mind, and was assured that we were, in fact, in credit with them!
When I spoke to Payplan about this, they said it's common for creditors to do this, as it guarantees them a bigger cut. They (Halifax) also know that and it can't be adjusted to help pay the other creditors more because Payplan have to be seen to be fair to everyone. That means paying all a precise % of the outstanding debt. So, going forward, I think the best thing to do is let the situation work itself out, and please don't worry about games THEY are playing, not you!
All the best,
ttfx

the_tooth_fairy

Twit_Head wrote: »

Hi
Thanks for sharing your experience. I'm really pleased things are going so well for you. I think maybe most of us look to the free 'charity' companies because we're skint to start with! I also believe there is a lot of hype out there and it can be a trap for the unwary. You're very vulnerable at the start of a DMP (or whenever you realise the poop has hit the fan!) and a lot of fee-paying companies are like cruising sharks looking for a nice, juicy meal to gobble up!
Apologies because I'm not being cynical in your case. It's great to hear you are progressing so well with the help of your company. Best wishes to you and good luck. May you reach the end of your DMP soon.

'Twitty'

We nearly went down that road just before our Nuclear style fallout when everything hit the fan! Nearly 20% of £67K is a lot of money and, OK, it's taken an extra 6 months to get 2 creditors off our backs with 0% but that still doesn't add up. We got calls well into the night from some of the fee paying companies, one of the girls there even said to me,"Well, If you are still INTERESTED in being in debt in 5 years time, maybe we can't help you". Seriously.

ttf

Loubylou2

Thank you so much for that reply tooth fairy. Its put my mind a bit more at rest. (Until the next issue comes up)
Just one more thing. I assume that we are still looking to freeze interest on that account so does that mean that in the dim and distant future, the figure submitted by Tesco might be reduced? Or is that naive wishful thinking?

I am realising that I have so much to learn about this. Last night I dreamt I was on a scary roller coaster (I hate em). Is that symbollic or what!!!

the_tooth_fairy

Twit_Head wrote: »

He-he - I'm back!
Hospital yesterday for tests. Got to see consultant in 2 weeks, and then further scans etc.
Have been very frightened lately with the sudden deterioration of my normally very,fit condition,after a heart attack a few years ago.
But God Bless the NHS! (Bl**dy hell and I work for them!) I know we all pay for it in a round-about way but where would we be on a restricted budget without the 'free' point of contact? Like America maybe - 'What's in your wallet???' before we treat you?
Thanks to all of you for your support. :beer:
And maybe I've found a way to clear my DMP sooner!
Because I'm so out of puff at the moment, I might just sign up to provide my services to one of those 'heavy breathing' naughty phone lines :rotfl:
Yea - explain that one away on 'any other income'

'Twitty'

Hey, wee woman! Aw, please don't be frightened, my mum has been in hospital recently, they thought it was a reoccurance of a former heart problem, as her lungs were full of fluid (she was really breathless) but the heart specialist now thinks it was bronchitis, so no surgery needed at the mo, thank God, she was only in a few days.
Please don't think the worst, that scan could show anything, even a virus that has affected you recently could do all this.
Take care pet,

ttfxx

the_tooth_fairy

Loubylou2 wrote: »

Thank you so much for that reply tooth fairy. Its put my mind a bit more at rest. (Until the next issue comes up)
Just one more thing. I assume that we are still looking to freeze interest on that account so does that mean that in the dim and distant future, the figure submitted by Tesco might be reduced? Or is that naive wishful thinking?

I am realising that I have so much to learn about this. Last night I dreamt I was on a scary roller coaster (I hate em). Is that symbollic or what!!!

We found with Halifax that they didn't reduce the payment (that's why we are in credit with them, couldn't they just write me a cheque!!!?) But they didn't add on any further charges either, if that makes sense? It also may help down the road when it comes to making them a F&F (full and final offer) where they could take into account all the interest you have paid them thus far, and take a reduced offer to close your account. I don't know the answer to that yet, being only a year in, but I hope so.
I also don't know about symbolic dreams, but suspect I've been on the Ghost Train for only, 13 months, (including the cobwebs!!) so who knows!!? :eek:

ttfx