Anybody know anything about Myvester?

livinginhope

sandralovescats wrote:

We were speaking of IVA's not DMP's.

sandra,Payplan do not do IVAs,their sister company does.
Weller wanted to do a DMP not an IVA
I think we are all now getting confused,time for my bath
LIH

sean1970_2

Phew - thought that I should put matters straight as I work for Myvesta and this thread is concerning me.

To clarify firstly Myvesta is actually a not-for-profit social enterprise and not a charity. CCCS is a registered charity wherby Payplan is a commercial company with shareholders etc. All 3 organisations do good work and should be commended for this I would add.

Before I clarify further, Nicky, may I ask, are you also the same Nicky that is employed by Payplan as their Search Engine Optimiser and Administrator of their Debt Questions forum? Bit concerned if this is the case given your occupation and the content of some of the comments I have read and my apologies if this is not the case.

Lets deal with the question of fees then:

CCCS are paid by creditors on a percentage of what they collect (11.5% I think) by administrating debt management plans. This funds their operations and essentially copies the American model of credit counselling. CCCS are not insolvency practitioners and until recently they referred their IVA referrals to Debt Free Direct. They now refer their IVA work to Grant Thornton in return for a fee. This is another revenue stream for the organisation whilst they are in the process of setting up their own in house firm of insolvency practitioners to administer IVAs themselves. This will generate significant incomes for CCCS and their IVA operation is expected to go live in spring.

Payplan also receive creditor funding for the collecting services that they provide to creditors for the administration of debt management plans. Payplan are also insolvency practitioners and (as with all IP's) charge fees for setting up and arranging Individual Voluntary Arrangements. I believe the holding company that owns Payplan also owns a commercial mortgage business amongst others.

In fact Myvesta has in the past worked directly with Payplan regarding debt management plans as we were offered funding from Payplan for each DMP case that we referred to them and qualified to pass their DMP criteria of debts of more than £8000 and a minimum payment of no less than £100 that could be disbursed to creditors by them.

Naturally these activities generate income for the business that is essential for all organisations wishing to provide services to consumers.

In terms of history, Myvesta was started as a charity in the USA in 1994 as a result of our founder (Steve Rhode) going bankrupt in the USA in 1990. Steve had a very difficult time with his bankruptcy and wanted to start an organisation that could help others experiencing what he had already gone through.

In the UK Myvesta launched in June 2005 and has enjoyed a growing reputation for providing a caring and non judgemental debt advice service to those people with often more complicated situations that other organisations find difficult or do not have the flexibility (due to size etc) to deal with.

We are a relatively small company (and we have no desire to be a large company) and we are funded mostly from the outsourced payment processing and bill payment service that we provide to our insolvency practitioner partners (predominently Grant Thornton and Baker Tilly which are both highly respected top 10 UK auditors and accountants) for our mutual IVA clients.

The funds that we generate allow us to offset the costs of the help services that we provide free of charge. Examples of this are the free debt management plans (with no qualifying criteria etc) that we have introduced along with a bankruptcy assistance fund that we have started to help people pay their bankruptcy fees in extreme hardship cases. We are the only debt advice agency that has such a fund to my knowledge.

We also plough much of the revenue that we generate into our comprehensive website that now has over 1400 pages on it. In particular we try to use the internet as a way in which we can 'out punch our weight' in terms of reaching more people via the online resources that we offer.

The multimedia bankruptcy, Insolvency Service, IVA and Credit Reporting video series that we have introduced are very popular with the many visitors to our site for example.

In terms of how we operate we refuse to accept creditor funding for the services that we provide as we feel that this represents a conflict of interest really. In the USA creditor funded debt counselling organisations have been very heavily critisised as being essentially controlled by the creditors that fund them. We never want to compromise our independance in that way and we feel very strongly about this point.

Call us old fashioned but we do believe that if you do good things then good things will happen. This formula has been successful for the organisation for 13 years and we do not see the need to change our approach to offering assistance to individuals that need it most.

Someone mentioned an issue with Myvesta in the USA? I assume it is the hilarious California incident that pops up from time to time as it is on the web. Read this link below that explains the situation and you will be stunned by ridiculous origins of that particular incident!

http://myvesta.org.uk/faq/questions/335

I hope that my decision to post here serves to clarify the main differences between CCCS, Payplan and Myvesta and how each of the organisations are funded and their corporate structure etc.

Safe to say all of the organisations clearly do good work in different ways and the fact that each organisation has fans and critics is testimony to this.

Oh, on the subject of donations yes we do accept them as this helps to fund us etc. Donations for our free DMP service are greatfully received and in fact the average donation is about £4.00 per month by just under 50% of our DMP clients.

Best regards

Sean

moonlightpjs

So very very sorry, please don't argue over my thread, I'm so upset that all this has started with me. This has all got out of control - I only wanted info about a DMP with Myvestor as an option I was considering.

Thank you all for your comments - I will take them all on board but feel no further on than when I posted.

Sandra - Thank you for giving me the info, its much appreciated

Livinginhope - I will call National Debtline on Monday, thank you for your concern

Nicky -Thank you - I appreciate your concern and would welcome any infor you may come across as to why Payplan don't deal with Moorcroft

Lynz -As always - always there xxx

Richard_S - You know what I think of you - ha ha

Sean - Thank you for claryifing matters

sean1970_2

My pleasure weller711 and I truly hope that you get the support that you would like from whichever organisation you feel will represent you best.
Best regards

Sean