Halifax CC

sharonf99

Hi

We have a DMP with CCCS which we have been paying for the last 4.5 years. One of our debts is with Halifax for a card in my name only. The original debt was £14k and we have paid back under our DMP £12k to Halifax but I still owe £9k. They even charge me a late payment fee every month because of when CCCS pay them. I did write to them 2 years ago asking if they could change the payment date but was told no.

I now want to write to them to see if there is any other way of reducing this debt as I can't see us finishing our DMP any time this decade at this rate. All of our other creditors charge us 0% interest or a very small amount.

Any help on the best way to tackle this would be really great.

Thanks

bottleofred

Hi Sharon,

Unfortunately, some creditors are happy to freeze interest and others are not. You could write to them again and explain you have been paying regularly, but would need the interest to be frozen in order to eventually clear the debt. It may work and hopefully you'll get a result. HSBC are others who tend not to reduce/freeze interest from what I've read on the boards, but I'm sure they've done it for some people.

Good luck and I hope they freeze or at the very least reduce the interest

Red

secretshopper75

Sharon, I'd definately write to them, they've stopped interest on one of my o/d's, not the other, one out of 4 credit cards with them has had interest stopped so far.

MyLastFiver

It's true that Halifax have no obligation to freeze interest, but you should at least try everything you can to get them to see reason. I can't believe you've let them charge you late fees every month for 4.5 years, over which time they have pocketed £7K of your money. I would have done something like take them off your CCCS plan and pay them directly, on time. Whatever else you do, this is something you should seriously consider doing from now on.

Complain in line with their complaints procedure, and escalate as necessary. I had a similar problem with HSBC a few years ago and they eventually stopped interest after I complained. I put in the letter a sentence saying something like "There is no point in my servicing a debt I have little hope of ever repaying".

If this doesn't work you should consider stopping paying them. This will have the following results:

1. They will sell your account to a DCA. You will probably not be charged any more interest. This DCA will make a new payment arrangement with you.

2. At the very, very worst, they will take you to court and you will get a CCJ. This may not be a bad thing because you will pay no more interest on the sum in the judgement. HOWEVER they are far, far more likely to go through step 1 first, meaning step 2 is unlikely to happen.

Do you have a default on your file from Halifax? If so, they cannot default you again so stopping paying them will have little effect on your credit file. The fact that you have 4.5 years' worth of late payments means that your file is already ruined, for all practical purposes.

foxymd

mylastfiver that's a great answer. Halifax have been doing the same to me. CCCS have just agreed to reduce the payment to them (to below the minimum payment due) and if this does not work I will try what you suggested - what have I got to lose?

secretshopper75

They're doing the same with me...keep paying them but the interest amount wipes out the payment, sent a letter asking them to stop interest and got a letter back basically saying no....

pmf63

MyLastFiver wrote: »

"There is no point in my servicing a debt I have little hope of ever repaying".

This is pretty much what I did with them five years ago. What I was paying was not even covering the interest so my debt was getting higher each month. I told them that if they didn't freeze interest they may as well start court proceeding because I wont pay you for the privilege of increasing my debt.

They said they couldn't but a month later I had a letter saying that interest would be frozen if I continued to pay my £5pm (I think it was) plus £1 to show willing.