full and final settlements rejected

charliekq1

Hi

I'm new to posting although have been getting advice and information for this forum for years as i've struggled to get out of a bad situation without going bankrupt. I am on payment plans with all of my creditors (see breakdown of debt and payments I make below, plus full and final settlement offers and responses received so far). I've defaulted on everything at some stage but have managed to pull everything back a bit by not spending a penny, working a lot of hours and talking to my creditors and arranging payment plans. However, I have recently been told that my job is ending next month, I am not eligible for redundancy as on temp rolling contract and will be back to square one with 2 young children and not enough money to pay anybody or for anything. My mum is widowed and has savings of £6000. She wanted me to offer this to 4 of my 5 creditors, then pay the other 1 (a large managed loan with HSBC) as I could just about manage that even with a casual job if that's all i can find at first.

I wrote to Natwest and Apex, offering 25% of balance as f&f offer. I have just spoken to Apex and they have refused to go any lower than 95% of outstanding balance. I fully explained my situation and they refused to move at all, instead altering my payments to £10 and £5 per month for each loan with them. I wonder if that is the end of things, if there is nothing else I can do but pay £5 and £10 for the rest of time.

Sorry for the long post but I wondered if anyone else had found themselves in a similar position or had any success with f&f offers with apex or natwest or had any advice on what to do next.

Finally, I desperately want to repay the debt I have. I have also payed so much back in bank charges and interest over the last few years and am not looking for a quick way out of debt.

Thank you for reading, Charlie


Financial breakdown:
Started debt plan in 2008.
outstanding debt and payments/ 2011

Creditor Outstanding F&F offer Response

HSBC managed loan: £28,000

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Apex (Egg loan) : £ 8,000 £2000 £7,200 req'd
Apex (Egg c/card) :£ 3,100 £775 £2,500 req'd
Natwest (loan) :£8,000 £2000 no response yet
Natwest (c/card) :£1,150 £288 no response yet

FOURCANDLES_2

Do nt use your mums life savings to service the debt your job goes the creditors will have to accept £1 per debt like it or lump it.

edinburgher

Sorry mate, but 25% of balance is just way too low. I've never heard of anyone negotiating to pay that little.

charliekq1

Thanks, I offered 25% as it was roughly what I had split across 4 creditors. I had no idea what they would accept but never thought it would be as high as 95%.

fermi

edinburgher wrote: »

Sorry mate, but 25% of balance is just way too low. I've never heard of anyone negotiating to pay that little.

Depends on whether the debt has been sold on to a DCA and how long it has gone unpaid or repaid at a low level.

There have certainly been people on here who have had settlements with DCAs on longstanding debts for 10-20%.

Tixy

How much are you paying currently compared to the original minimum repayment? How long, at current rates, will it take you to clear the debts in full? Have your creditors frozen interest?

If you lose your income then you'll have to offer much lower reduced payments to your creditors (possibly as little as £1 a month if its all you can afford). It might be that once you have been paying very low payments for a while that your creditors might accept much lower F&Fs, you may need to wait for your debts to be sold on to DCAs before they will go as low as the sorts of % you are talking about though.

Might be worth offering F&Fs again in a few months, though there is never any guarantee that creditors/DCAs will accept even offers that would seem to us to make sense to them financially.

edinburgher

Depends on whether the debt has been sold on to a DCA and how long it has gone unpaid or repaid at a low level.

There have certainly been people on here who have had settlements with DCAs on longstanding debts for 10-20%.

Good to know Fermi - any suggestion for the OP on how to try and negotiate with the creditors?

undaunted

Are Apex just a collection Agency or have they bought the debt? If just collecting for Egg I'd be inclined to write directly to Egg and see what they say.

Either way, given your Mums kind offer you could perhaps also apply for an IVA. If Natwest & HSBC decided to accept it you'd have your 75% and Apex wouldn't be able to block it.

http://www.insolvency.gov.uk/bankruptcy/alternativestobankruptcy.htm

Setting aside your Mums offer do you have any personal assets? If not & you've already been struggling for a long time & things are now getting worse they may well feel it's in the best interests to take what they can now.

Good luck

se0303

I managed to get a 40% agreement from Barlclaycard and Virgin (MBNA) credit card. However, my story took an entirely unexpected twist. I had written confirmation of Barclaycard's agreement, and paid the sum due (£2700 on a £6500 debt). Three months have gone by, and they are still sending me monthly statements, showing the £2700 payment, but also now reverting back to full interest and demanding the full monthly instalment. Quite unbelievable. They didn't honour the written agreement we negotiated; they haven't replied to several letters reminding of this, and are applying late charges to my account again. I've sent a formal complaint, and had a reply saying I will receive a reply within 2 months.. Just incredible.

mrscmr

we got 63% with egg - a cc and a loan which was managed by egg collections so hadnt been sold on, we managed 62% with mbna which again had been on a payment plan and not sold on. but we dealed directly with them - we had to gradually negotiate - started about 50% and got rejected several times.

good luck

greytdog_2

Apex are very awkward - we had two outstanding ex egg debts with them and have been paying since 2006 - we recently offered them varying amounts from 60% of balance up to 80% of balance and they refused. For us they would only accept 95% of balance or nothing. Any reason you dont want to go bankrupt?

oh and forgot to say they stated that as we had paid regularly for so long they were happy to wait as long as it takes for us to pay in full - incredible eh!