Anyone Moved From CCCS to Self Managed DMP ?

facingmydebts

Hi all,

Sorry if this is in the wrong place but I'm new to this.

I'm currently under a DMP with CCCS and have been since Feb 2010. Haven't had any real problems with them except they made a late payment last month which resulted in one of my creditors reinstating interest (I managed to get this removed but was still annoying).

I currently owe £14,000 to 6 creditors - Lloyds/TSB cc, Capital One cc, Next, Adams Card (Creation), Halifax OD and Littlewoods Catalouge. All except Creation have stopped my interest which is great and I'm paying £371 a month towards them.

I've been thinking recently of switching to a self managed DMP as I really would like to take control of my finances again myself. CCCS haven't really done any of the bargaining with the creditors as I've done it so it feels like they are just dishing out my money every month.

Has anyone had any experiences of doing this ?..good or bad

I'm happy to make the same payments to each creditor that I am at the moment but am just worried that if the creditors know I've left CCCS that they may reinstate interest or try to make me increase my monthly payments.

Thanks for reading

F xx

appleblossom

We were with payplan for 8 years until last september when we stopped using them as for some reason we started getting the phone calls etc again and I wasn't happy with how they were dealing with things.

I wrote a letter to all the creditors explaining this and stating that we would be taking control of our finances. I asked for a 6 month period of keeping the payments the same as we were paying stating I would review this amount after the six months had passed and that would prove we were keeping up with the payments and were genuine in wanting to clear our debts etc.

All of the companies accepted this, one even asked if I wanted to reduce the monthly payment to make things a bit easier (I declined) and I am due to do the review now (found your post as was looking for a standard template offer of payment rather then a rambling letter from me again to them lol) - I get so much satisfaction at the end of each month month seeing all the payments ticked off knowing they have been paid and I can finally see the debts coming down whereas I couldn't see that with payplan. Every so often they give me a ring to see if I want a full and final settlement (hope to do this next year) but honestly - I was so so scared of starting to deal with them on my own thinking they would refuse or hassle me etc but I was pretty much overwhelmed by their responses.

None of them started charging interest again - the only thing that changed was there was a DCA that we had our tesco debt with and that reverted to Tesco direct when we stopped using the DMP.

Personally I would say if your not happy then change - I'm so pleased that I did. Good luck.x

facingmydebts

Thank you so much for replying.
Am really glad that switching has worked for you.
When I started my DMP I was so stressed and didn't really want the hassle of dealing with it myself but over a year on I feel so much stronger and want to take control again.
Good luck with the rest of your DMP

F x

Wee_Pilsbury

In a previous life (yeah, I've done this to myself twice now although this time wasn't as bad!) I did a self-administered DMP. Most creditors were ok although Barclaycard stopped interest and started it again almost randomly. I liked the control of it but it was a bit stressful. I didn't know about things like Payplan or CCCs then but if I had I would probably have gone with them.

That said, if they had then missed a payment or made it late then I would have been even more stressed than doing my own DMP. So, I suppose what I'm trying to say is that self administered can be done as long as you are prepared to face up to creditors a wee bit. The advice you can get on these forums will certainly help.

Good luck whatever you decide to do.:)

chancer63

Hi
I am also about to do this - move from CCCS and do it myself.
It scares me a bit but we have had a few issues with creditors saying they haven't received payment on time or that they have contacted CCCS and had no response. They could of course be lying :eek: Some creditors have also started trying to get restless.
We have problems with fluctuation in income as I am a full time student and we have certain times of the year when income drops a lot.
CCCS haven't got any interest or charges stopped and I recently had a CCJ from a creditor that were being paid through DMP.

CCCS seem to find it hard to deal with our slightly different circumstances and when I have to ring them I don't find them that understanding
I am hoping that by doing my own DMP I can get more control and peace of mind. This has been a really tough month with unplanned expenditure due to things going wrong - so we have no money for our DMP payment. We have to sell our house as we can no longer afford the mortgage,
Been thinking of quitting Uni and getting full time work because of the pressure but OH says I have worked too hard to quit now, bless him.
Would love to hear others experiences - we need to turn a corner soon before we have nothing left. including our marriage

glimmerofhope

Hi
I was in a similar postion
I started my DMP with CCCS and to be honest it was a relief to get help; but I wrote all the letters and correspondance requesting interest stopped not CCCS
After a year I decided to go it alone - I wrote to the companies in Dec and continued to make payments
End of last week I got a letter from Natwest stating as I hadn't responded to their previous letter (never received) and hadn't been making payment (had) I had 14 days to pay the balance. I called them and they explained that the letter had been sent incorrectly (first letter never sent), had received my payments and had accepted I had moved to self-administered DMP but they would want to review my SOA every 6 months.
At first this paniced me as I thougt OMG what have I done, but when I calmed down I figured they still cannot have what I don't have and I refused to give them my phone number or where I work (which they asked for a couple of times), so self administered will be on my terms by letter

Bit of a long post but basically it is a matter of choice and as long as you don't mind the correspondance is certainly more flexible
best of luck