Please Help Freezing Interest

Phill1982

Hi,

Any help you could offer would be great!

About 10 months ago I set up an arrangement with the CCCS to pay my creditors a reduced monthly fee. I was of the understanding that the CCCS would arrange for the interest to be frozen on my loans and credit cards, It transpires that this hasn't happened and the banks have continued to charge me a higher amount of interest than I have been paying each month which puts me in a worse position than when I started.

This is most concerning after I thought I had got the situation under control.

The debts include credit cards, a loan and an overdraft all which appear to be continuing to slap huge interest charges on to my account each month.

I have spoken with CCCS and they have advised me to write a letter to the banks. Does anyone know of any template letters or can offer any helpful advice?

Many thanks

DGJsaver

If it was me , i would stop paying ALL of them , once they get bored chasing you they will sell it on , THEN you negotiate at your terms , with the charges and interest stopped

di3004

Hi there

As time have gone on it all adds up, but when we were in difficulties although advice from the CCCS, we dealt with our own issues by actually requesting direct to the banks to freeze interest, time went on for us too and they did not do this, so we ended up giving them the chance to do so and from there-on we made a complaint to the FOS under hardship, they resolved this and stopped the interest, and also refunded any charges in relation to this to the accounts which helped bring the debt down.

dancingfairy

Technically it is an informal arrangement so they do not have to freeze interest (CCCS should have told you this). How much CCCS have pushed for interest to be froozen - it's impossible to tell.
Hopefully someone will let you know where a template letter for this is and then if that fails you can complain to the companies and then take it further if necessary.
Good Luck
df

di3004

Phil

Do you mind me asking if there are any insurances added on any of your accounts?

The reason why I ask is, that these will higher the debt owed and they are now worthless to you on a payment plan, as your not going to be able to make a successful claim for instance for sickness/unemployment etc.

Its only a suggestion that's all, cos not everyone are aware that they were sold insurance, if this is the case you could cancel and request for an insurance (PPI) refund, this would of course help towards any debt too.;)

For more on PPI and reclaiming here (if this applies to you, so it maybe worth checking out any agreements/paperwork you may have in relation to the accounts).
http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/reclaim/ppi-loan-insurance

Good luck.

joolz43

None of the creditors are obliged to stop charging interest but in the end most do. Sometimes this doesn't happen until they have defaulted you. As for PPI insurance it is definitely worth it - I recently managed to get over £1500 out of Alliance and Leicester which will go a long way to paying off the debt. Good luck!

barbiedoll

The template letter that you are looking for can be found here...

http://www.nationaldebtline.co.uk/england_wales/debt_advice.php#6

Although CCCS do write a standard letter to your creditors at the start of your DMP, requesting that interest and charges are stopped, a lot of them will completely ignore it. Just because you are using a debt managment charity, it doesn't hurt to be proactive yourself. I got the interest stopped on 3 of my accounts, using these letters.

Have any of the credit cards increased their interest rate since you began defaulting on your payments? If so, you can reject the increase, have a look at Martin's article here...

http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/reclaim/credit-card-interest-rate-increases?dd

And as other posters have said, definitely claim back any PPI that you were sold on the loans/cards. For the price of a few stamps, it can be well worth it! Good luck