reduced payment help

glenandemm

hi guys,im after abit of advice,basically im self employed and work isnt great and i have a few credit cards that have been payed upt about a mnth ago when i realised i just couldnt keep paying the payments im paying as there wasnt enough money to go around and thought my house bills,c.tax,fuel bills where the main priorty,anyway as ive missed a payment and about to miss the second ive been in contact with my c/cards and ive set an arrangement up for half payments for 6 months to get back in order and freeze interest,nw ive done this with two of the companys egg and mbna and have to say they was great and did this right away then contacted natwest who i have an mbna card with and they wasnt interested in helping even when i told them what had been arranged with the other companys and how great they was,but they just said basically no and stopped the card which i had no problem with and stopped my online access so i couldnt even pay online if i wanted to and said im basically going to get a default to which i replied how can that be if im offering to pay something rather than nothing and it would only be temporary plus i thought they had to issue a ntice of default first which ive not had?
the lady was very unhelpful and now im worried but theres no way i can pay the full amount at the moment with the income i have,ive always been led to believe that you take care of the important bills like i said before so you have a rof over your head at least but im very worried about this one card which theyve not been helpfull about at all!
any advice would be great about what i do next?

Tixy

Hi.
You have done the right thing in taking care of your priority costs first.
You have been fortunate that 2 of your cc companies have come to an agreement with you - overall I would say that the natwest position is more common when you first contact your creditors. As natwest have been no help on the phone I would suggest you write to them offering a reduced payment and explaining your change in circumstance and also asking them to freeze interest while you are at it. They may also want to see an income & expenditure account to show you are offering all you can afford before they will consider your repayment plan.

It is likely that they will issue you with a default after 2-3 months of missed or reduced payments but you are right a notice of default will first be issued and then after that - assuming you don't settle the account in accordance with the notice - a default will be registered on your credit file.

if you think you are still likely to struggle in 6months and not be able to go back to full payments with the other 2cards then you might want to consider seeking advice from one of the debt charities and perhaps consider a debt management plan.

glenandemm

hi there thanks for getting back,i have a friend who i was speaking to and theyve suggested i go to the cccs and ask about a debt management plan as your right as im not sure 6 months will be enough but its a start and a help in getting this sorted, anyway i did go online at the cccs website and filled the info in and contacted them the next day and they said i had to print off some forms on theyre site and send them off to the c/card company but im not sure if im doing this right and was hoping they would be able to help me abit more by doing this on my behalf?
can they help me do that or am i asking too much,its not that im lazy but im so daunted by it all and would be great if they could help me out more incase the c/card company comes back and says no etc?