Which Fee Free Debt Management Agency Have You Used?

ffs

There has recently been some strong criticism on this board of one of the fee free organisations often recommended to set up and run DMPs. Which agency have you used and how would you rate their service? In particular their ability to negotiate affordable payments with your creditors and minimise interest and charges.

Many thanks

getting_there_6

We are about to make our first payment to cccs for our dmp, so far we have had the odd phone call from creditors, but as soon as we mention that we are setting up a dmp with cccs they have all tended to back off and not get nasty at all (so far). The cccs itself have been great, very helpful and not judgmental; everything so far has went the way they explained to us.

Actually this is one question that I would like to ask and find out from other people on a dmp, which creditors accepted the payments and frozen the interest and which was most likely to cause problems.

our main creditors are:

Egg
Intelligent Finance
Capital one
Royal bank of Scotland
Northern Rock
Barclaycard
Lloyds TSB

Although we don’t know if any of them has accepted the payments or frozen the interest yet, as it is still at the setting up stage, but would like to know if anyone on a cccs dmp has had problems with any off these creditors?

charliedavis

The only one (of that list) I tried to reduce payments with was Capital One. Due to the fact they often lend to the lower end of the market (unsafe risks)..I think they tend to come down harder. They were not very helpful, and refused to freeze interest at all.

Debenhams, Marks & Spencers, Great Universal Stores, and Barclaycard were all excellent when I reduced payments.

Next took me to court immediately so, keen to avoid the CCJ, I repaid the debt by borrowing from my parents.

Hope this helps

charliedavis

Aaargh why does it say Sarah in the bottom of my reply?

Debt_Free_Chick

Aaargh why does it say Sarah in the bottom of my reply?

At the top of the page, just above the beginning of this thread, click on User CP, then on the left, Edit Signature. I understand it's a bug that crept in during the upgrade

Malestrom

Have a DMP setup with CCCS, all went through a piece of cake and no problems so far although this is only month 3 with them (14 months previously with a commercial debt management company, Welcome Solutions). Welcome Solutions actually set everything up and to be fair, they did a good job. Then CCCS renegotiated our payments. We are paying more to our creditors now as not paying £70 fees and £45 payment protection to Welcome Solutions, so thats knocked a few years off the length of the DMP.

All our creditors froze interest. They are:

First Direct
Egg
Barclays
Barclaycard

Only another 7-ish years to go....ho-hum.

chantilly_bex

lol see my post re paypal
maybe we just had nasty creditors they include cahoot, simply be, ge capital, HFC bank etc

Malestrom

I think you mean PayPlan, rather than PayPal

chantilly_bex

lol yes Payplan...can u tell im ebay mad yet

annam0787

CCCS is definitely the best. I've been on a DMP with them since October 2004 and so far have paid off 7k (14k to go!). They are good if you need a review of circumstances or whatever and it all runs very smoothly, you get a statement from them once a month showing how much you've paid to each creditor. They also advise on other options, like declaring yourself bankrupt, getting an IVA etc etc.
Give them a call or go to their website https://www.cccs.co.uk!
Anna

P.S all my creditors hav frozen the interest too. Had a few teething problems with American Express and HFC but Egg and others were okay. Of course, once you're on a DMP your credit rating will be pretty poor (and for a few years after you've paid off all your debts)!

aimme13

Im with payplan and have been for 2 years, no problems at all, as far as i am aware all my creditors have froze the interest ( but have emailed them recently to confirm).....i know for sure that capital one and royal bank of scotland have definatly frozen interest...........it was capital one that also gave me the number and recomended payplan