Please help my Mum! She is burying her head in the sand, HELP!

theateam

hi
first of all i would advice you to get the credit limit which has excessed over the agreed amount back to the agreed amount. As from personal experience i would suggest that you ask your mum to ring the creditors and than get her permission so you can arrange payments to what you feel that can be affordable. Before that it would be an idea to do income and expenditure to see what she can afford. I myself ran away from debts which mounted up to £10,000 but through MSE im so glad i have faced the truth and made arrangements with my creditors and made sure the interest was frozen on all my credits. I hope this helps wish you all the best :xmassign:

Sarahsaver

Good to know things are improving:)
I have a mum with her head in the sand too unfortunately to the extent that she has an eviction notice and doesn't seem to believe that it can actually happen.
I wish she were IT literate too then she may be inspired by this story.

Blade26

Hi The A Team

We have done all you suggested, this thread was started in February, and I was looking for some advice about where to from here, she has managed to pay off £5340.56 off her debts in 10 months, but whereas B'card had suspended interest they have now decided to put it back on and have even very kindly (not) sent Mum a new card, which she has chopped up and thrown away! :mad:

Its takenm alot of hard work and she is not getting any younger (currently 65) she is however determined to pay back every penny that she owes, which is currently:

Lloyds £3304.03
Yorkshire Bank £1798.96
Barclaycard £5927.93
M & S £1413.12
Frasercard £500.00

What I want advice on is whether it is worth a try to write to them again and request that the interest is suspended, she has made regular payments over the last 10 months which will have done no harm at all I guess, hence B'card giving her a new card (I am really annoyed about this!! :mad: ) You said that you have had the interest frozen, can I ask what you wrote to them and said.

Spendless

Blade-sorry I don't have any advice for you, other than suggesting another trip to CAB or ringing nationaldebtline to see how you go about freezing interest.

Don't wish to hi-jack your current question, but just wondered if your parents sorted their finances out to a more equal level and if your mum ever told dad of her problems?

Blade26

Hi Spendless,

In answer to your questions, yes and sort of!

Mum told Dad that now the mortgage was paid off it wasnt equal the way that their finances were split, as he had very small outgoings in comparison to hers, she also pointed out that he earnt more than double what she did pre-retirement, and whilst she managed whilst she was working full-time it was a struggle now she was working only part-time and claiming her pension. TBH he was completely oblivious as to how much gas, electric, telephone etc were costing, so they came to an agreement that Dad would double his weekly household contribution which has made up a great deal of the shortfall and released some of my Mum's 'own' money to repay her debts.

When I say sort of about the debt situation, she has told him that she needed to sort her finances out as she wanted to have a clearer picture of what she had coming in and going out. I dont think the figures themselves were actually mentioned, but I suppose one small step......

I will perhaps try to get to CAB with Mum sometime over the Xmas holidays but perhaps given that they are short staffed at the best of times, I'll give a couple of other places a call for advice.

I sat last night and went through all her figures on the snowball calculator, and worse case scenario she may take 3 years to pay it all off, not that long in the great scheme of things really!!

:mad: I cant get it out of my mind though about Barclaycard and giving her back a credit limit and her card, I feel that it is totally irresponsible of them, and had they sent it back to someone who didnt have as much support and love as Mum then the situation could just get worse and worse....rant over!

Blade26

Hello peeps,

Thought I would pop on with a brief update of my Mum's situation. All her debts are now on 0%, some for 12 months others for longer, arrangements made direct with the card issuer not through Collections Departments. So the future is looking brighter.

Lloyds TSB/Frasercard/Yorkshire Bank are now all on 12 months 0% Halifax One card, which we have worked out if Mum pays off £350 per month she can clear it before the full APR kicks in which is great.

I am now in the process of helping her reclaim bank charges from the following:

LLoyds TSB £623.00 + £156.27 interest
Yorkshire Bank £498.00 + £102.97 interest
CITI Bank Approximately £1600 + interest

Papers have been served on Lloyds TSB and Yorkshire Bank, they have until 8th May to respond. Citi only returned the requested copy statements yesterday so we are about 1 month away from any Court action with them, but I am so determined to fight for what is hers.

Don't give up the fight fellow DFW, we will all suceed in the end, it just seesm a long way off at the moment. Its not my debt but helping Mum through this has made me more determined to remain as debt free as possible or at least as cheaply as I can

Blade26

fairylights_2

It's good to hear she's getting sorted - and good on you for sticking with her and helping her out!

starkiller

Hi Im Blade26's sister, just wanna say what a massive support eveyone on here has been to us over these last Year or so. Talking to sis on phone last night mulling over what situation would be now if we hadn't found out when we did. Got so angry thou cos we are trying to claim back charges from credit card... CITI card in particular, when we transferred balance the card had an o/s balance of £2160...£1600 of this being charges.. :mad: :mad: :mad: It just makes me so so angry that feel justified in charging £25 a time. They have asked for patience whilst dealing with her enquiries, they had no patience when mum was out of work cos a lorry reversed into her whilst stationary in her car.....hassling her to make payments, when really she was lucky to not have been seriously injured.

Rant over!

Thanks for all the advice that people have given us, without this site and the people that use it I really really don't know if we would have known where to start :beer:

Cheers
Starkiller X X X

MushyPeas

Just came across this thread and wanted to say to starkiller and blade26 that you have both done an amazing job. Your mum is very, very lucky. Do let us know how you get on with the bank charges.

starkiller

:beer: :T :T :T :beer:

So happy!!! Hope Blade 26 isn't going to be too peed off for me sharing the good news before her!!! (Soz Rachel! )

Mum got a letter today from CITI regarding her correspondance for charges made to her account.....! Enclosed in the envelope was a cheque......a cheque for £2100, as full and final settlement for her claim.. woohoo!!!

Mum is chuffed to bits, a bit hard for her to contain it considering dad doesn't know, but just to let you guys know the reclaiming of bank charges really does work.

Huge thanks to CAG website for their help too, off to post there next, or might let rachel do that one :rolleyes:

Mum isn't going to waste the coin its going towards the O/S balances on the other cards.

Chuffed to bits.
Thanks again to everyone.

Starkiller X