Advice RE: temp payment arrangement

pip10

Hi,

I have recently been experiencing financial difficulties. I contacted CCCS and they suggested a temp payment arrangement and so i offered £1 a month to my credit card lenders. I sent letters to this effect.

I received letters back from 2 of them to say this was fine etc and i am in contact with the other, which i expect to be ok.

However with one of them (virgin-mbna) i haven't received a response to the letter. I am getting daily calls off Global Vantage their debt collection agency in India. I remember many years ago having dealings with them - i found them to be a nightmare and have read quite a few negative stories about them. I haven't answered any of the calls - i expect they will just ask me to make a payment which i can't make and I would prefer everything to be done in writing. I have continued to make the £1 payments.

I was thinking of writing them another letter to say something along the lines of 'further to my recent letter, i don't appear to have received a response, i am continuing to make the £1 payments, which i offered in my letter'. Does this sound like the right thing to do? - Any advice?

Thanks for any help.

Hannah_10

I would write and say something more like:

Further to my letter of (date) in which I offered you repayments at £1 per month I have made the following:

(date) Payment of £1 made by (standing order/ cheque/ whatever)
(date) Payment of £1 made by (standing order/ cheque/ whatever)

My balance should now be £xxx. I request a writen statement to confirm this.

You have a right to statements (although to be fair, maybe not a statement every time you pay something, but hey no harm trying) so they should respond to this.

The reason I would go for a statement of fact tone to the letter rather than a please respond tone is to avoid giving them any hint of how they might side track the issue. You are telling them that you are keeping them accountable, that you're not daft and that they wont intimidate you with the silent treatment.

They are probably ignoring you in the hope you will just stop doing what you're doing. It is really inconvenient for them, it means they can't get a positive result if they took you to court and they hate that. It shows you are winning.

Hopefully you are using only signed for post too? Otherwise any correspondance you send which they wish they hadn't seen will be filed straight between the blades of the shredder.

You are right to avoid the phone, speaking to a DCA on the phone is a bad idea.

pip10

Hey,

Many thanks for your response and advice!

The letter i sent asked them to consider stopping interest and charges. But they added interest and charges this month when i only paid the £1 payment, even though i had sent the letter. Would you bring up charges/interest again in this letter?

I am still getting statements online by the way. I only wrote the original letter a month ago but i thought i should have heard by now. I made the 2nd £1 payment today.

Yep i used signed for post and i know it was delivered to them

Hannah_10

Oh right, well if it's only been a month since you have been on token payments don't worry too much. If you haven't got a response to the letter asking for charges to be frozen within 4 weeks of them getting it, be cheeky and send it again. They don't have to reply to it, they can ignore it, but you don't have anything to lose by being a bit pestery. I would keep the payments and the charges on separate letters too.

fatbelly

MBNA are subscribers to The Lending Code which says:

224.
Subscribers should consider reducing or stopping interest and charges when a customer evidences that they are in financial difficulties. Such reduction/suspension decision should be based upon an income and expenditure statement indicating that they are unable to make repayments sufficient to meet contractual terms. Where a customer is able to make only token payments, their debt should not increase as a result of interest and charges levied. The assessment should reflect the customer’s lack of ability to pay rather than the stage an account has reached in the arrears cycle or whether they are using free sources of debt advice. Where a firm declines to allow concessions, they should be prepared to explain why to the customer or their adviser if requested to do so.

pip10

Thanks for the advice. That's interesting Fatbelly thanks. Didn't know of that in the lending code.

fatbelly

pip10 wrote: »

Thanks for the advice. That's interesting Fatbelly thanks. Didn't know of that in the lending code.

It was updated about a week ago - that paragraph wasn't in the old one.