DMP & Mutual Support Thread - Part 8

Growurown

Oooh I have just finished calling all my creditors so now have my new balance. I now owe £39,822.93 (This doesn't include the car HP payments soon to finish:j) We have paid back £9,468 in the last year. It would have been more but we had to reduce one months payment to pay for a huge car repair bill. All our creditors have stopped charges and interest apart from the Halifax on our bank overdraft. My Halifax CC has been passed onto BOS so no more charges there. OH's Halifax CC only stopped charging in June a year after starting our DMP. We were paying them £65 per month but only £20 approx of that was going towards the debt. Hopefully we can now make more inroads into that.

All the below stopped charging within a few months of starting the DMP
MBNA Virgin cc (OH's)
MBNA Virgin cc (mine) now passed onto Aktiv Kapital
Asda storecard (Santander)
Tesco cc
Mint cc
Nat West cc
Capital One cc
Nat West Loan now passed over to Moorcroft
Intelligent Finance loan now passed over to BOS

So if you are just starting out on your DMP take heart - its not all bad news.

willeynotwiley

ben80 wrote: »

Do you have online banking? If so, just cancel the DD's and set them up manually in the new account. Tell Natwest where to go. How ridiculous that taking cash from one account and putting it into the other each month would be easier?!!

I did point out that there suggestion is by no way 'easier' than a DD...if it was then why offer DD???
I was tempted to cancel the DD but being the mortgage was a little scared to if I'm honest. Anyway having finally got through to the right department today - after two weeks of trying the mortgage payment was very speedily swapped onto my Barclay account.
The loan payment however has to come out of a Natwest account grrr :mad: Luckily I have a sole account, with no overdraft, and they eventually agreed that the loan could be transferred onto this account (they weren't sure at first as the loan is in joint names and the account is only in mine) It does mean I am still tied to Natwest but given we bagged a 10 year fixed deal on the mortgage before the economy went down :T we have no plans to move the mortgage just yet :rotfl:
Off to set up a new SO to transfer the loan payment each month.

Time_to_face_the_music

cee76bee wrote: »

Hi all,

Myself and my wife are in the process of speaking to National Debtline about setting up a DMP. Total debt is around £16k (1 CC; 1 loan) with monthly payments totalling £500 which we are struggling to meet. So far we have missed only one payment on each - both last month. My question is, as we are being plagued by calls from these creditors, what should we tell them? Can we say that we are applying for a DMP? Should we make token payments? We'd like these calls to stop until the DMP is handling everything for us but this is obviously going to take a little while to set up.

Thanks in advance!

Hi cee76bee :hello:

Are National Debtline setting up your DMP via Payplan or CCCS? If so, you should be given a reference number and you can quote this to your creditors.

If you have already missed one payment, I would suggest making a token payment to each creditor, just to show that you are making an effort to keep up with debt payments while your DMP is being set up.

Did you know that you can go to CCCS or Payplan directly and don't have to go via National Debtline? I don't know the full details but maybe it is faster cutting out the middleman.

Well done on starting to deal with this :T

BevieB

Growurown wrote: »

Oooh I have just finished calling all my creditors so now have my new balance. I now owe £39,822.93 (This doesn't include the car HP payments soon to finish:j) We have paid back £9,468 in the last year. It would have been more but we had to reduce one months payment to pay for a huge car repair bill. All our creditors have stopped charges and interest apart from the Halifax on our bank overdraft. My Halifax CC has been passed onto BOS so no more charges there. OH's Halifax CC only stopped charging in June a year after starting our DMP. We were paying them £65 per month but only £20 approx of that was going towards the debt. Hopefully we can now make more inroads into that.

All the below stopped charging within a few months of starting the DMP
MBNA Virgin cc (OH's)
MBNA Virgin cc (mine) now passed onto Aktiv Kapital
Asda storecard (Santander)
Tesco cc
Mint cc
Nat West cc
Capital One cc
Nat West Loan now passed over to Moorcroft
Intelligent Finance loan now passed over to BOS

So if you are just starting out on your DMP take heart - its not all bad news.

Hi, can I ask if the Halifax just stopped charging interest or did you request? We have been charged 12% for last 11 months and like you only paid a tiny bit of capital back. We are awaiting the FOS to look at this for us.

Tigsmom

Hi everyone :wave:

I just thought I'd post an update (although there isn't much to report :j)

We have started getting the standard letters. Had 2 so far. One from barclaycard with £12 late fee and maybe/maybe not dedault. Then another from Tesco saying there is a 'problem with our direct debit'. This is despite us sending letters saying we are starting a DMP, sending £5 tokens and having proof that they cashed them 2 weeks ago. I think DH is breaking out a sweat thinking about it all (he's never taken so many paracetamol!) but after all I've read on here I'm taking them in my stride. I'm sending more tokens this week to cover August, along with letters referring them to my previous letter and token (which they have cashed so must have received) and a statement telling them that it's all they're getting from us until the DMP payment in September.

In reply to those of you who have asked should/should not you have a break and pay tokens I would strongly recommend it. If we hadn't we would have stumbled in our first month of the DMP because we haven't had enough time to save up our emergency/wiggle money and September is a bad month financially - MOT, DS birthday, school uniform x2 :eek:. It is still going to be tight but I'm optomistic that we will have enough to manage.

On a plus note I have a friend who is a guardian angel. She dropped a bag off at my house yesterday containing clothes that her son has 'outgrown'. I was stunned as there are enough in there to keep my son going until Spring, some designer, mostly hardly worn. This means that I only need to dress my daughter this winter :j

ben80

willeynotwiley wrote: »

I did point out that there suggestion is by no way 'easier' than a DD...if it was then why offer DD???
I was tempted to cancel the DD but being the mortgage was a little scared to if I'm honest. Anyway having finally got through to the right department today - after two weeks of trying the mortgage payment was very speedily swapped onto my Barclay account.
The loan payment however has to come out of a Natwest account grrr :mad: Luckily I have a sole account, with no overdraft, and they eventually agreed that the loan could be transferred onto this account (they weren't sure at first as the loan is in joint names and the account is only in mine) It does mean I am still tied to Natwest but given we bagged a 10 year fixed deal on the mortgage before the economy went down :T we have no plans to move the mortgage just yet :rotfl:
Off to set up a new SO to transfer the loan payment each month.

Well done, good news! Glad you're on your way!

talisker78

So, I'm back on this forum after a year and unfortunately very little further forward. Due to circumstances beyond my control I'm still £34,000 in debt and have now recently had to take a £9,000 pay cut. Not the best news this side of the summer.

However, I've bitten the bullet and through Payplan I'm now on a DMP. Wish I'd done that much sooner - like 5 years ago perhaps! I said my LBM was Sept 2007, but frankly i think I should change it to July 2012 as I've finally seen that trying to pay off my debts the normal way was causing me ridiculous amounts of worry and stress and now, in my current circumstnaces, is just futile!

I think Payplan have given me a debt free day of....actually, i can't remember but I think its about 11 years! Thankfully, my current payment level (which is £100 a month to 5 creditors - they're not going to like that!) should only be temporary, and hopefully by next summer I can double it, if not a little more.

Not had much in the way of angry letters yet. Just the generic 'please phone us, we want to help you....' rubbish - yeah, you want to help me give you more money that I don't have! Well, 'blood' and 'stone' come to mind. Also, so does 'sod' and 'off'.... Funnily enough I have resisted the temptation to phone them. Didn't take much resisting.

After 5 years of struggling to pay the debts - and I did manage to reduce them by around half, which isn't too bad - I've realised there is more to life than a good credit rating. There is your family and your sanity!

Am back on the money making though - after ebaying selected items from the loft, I raised £215. Hoping to raise another £100 by the end of this week, and already lining up more to go on. All proceeds go toward a well deserved, and long overdue, UK based short break in October.

Got my sister-in-law and her three kids coming over from America next week. They are staying for ten days (!) in our two bed-semi (!!). We still haven't quite figured out how that is going to work. Looks like I'll be in the car!

Must admit to being a little scared of the future. I'm lucky enough to have a mortgage already and a car thats not on finance. But once the defaults kick in I'm stuck for 6 years which just seems an awful long time just now. Trying to reassure myself that in the long run this is waaaaay better. Would you agree with that?

Also, my creditors are Tesco, Sainsburys, Capital One, BOS and Barclaycard. Has anyone had any particularly difficult times with any of these creditors on a DMP? I've read that HSBC can be a bit of a pain - thankfully I'm not with them - but are any of these known to be the awkward?

Thanks in advance for any advice you have. I'm glad to finally being part of the DMP 'club'!

Grand_Benders

talisker78 wrote: »

... I said my LBM was Sept 2007, but frankly i think I should change it to July 2012 as I've finally seen that trying to pay off my debts the normal way was causing me ridiculous amounts of worry and stress and now, in my current circumstnaces, is just futile!
Congrats on your new LBM and getting the DMP underway. It takes some of us longer than others to REALLY understand the Light Bulb Moment. My first was probably three years ago, and yet, here we are and my real LBM was June 15th this year!


After 5 years of struggling to pay the debts - and I did manage to reduce them by around half, which isn't too bad - I've realised there is more to life than a good credit rating. There is your family and your sanity!
Totally agree with this. Struggled for so long making minimum payments and not really getting anywhere. This thread has been a lifesaver for me and I really do believe I will never get credit ever again, by choice. I've never felt so 'in control' of my money!



Am back on the money making though - after ebaying selected items from the loft, I raised £215. Hoping to raise another £100 by the end of this week, and already lining up more to go on. All proceeds go toward a well deserved, and long overdue, UK based short break in October.
Well done with the ebaying. I'm trying to declutter, so my ebaying is mostly about getting rid of stuff and I'm just getting a few pounds for each thing, but I had a couple of high value items and managed an 'other income' total in July of £450!! For now that's our emergency fund, but we're hoping longer term to try and build a wee fund to get a cheap camper van (around £1k) for lots of long weekends touring in the UK to make up for no big holidays for a few years. I think you still have to have something to look forward to, and you can't live your life indefinitely without any kind of fun in it, so I totally get the 'short break' fund.


Must admit to being a little scared of the future. I'm lucky enough to have a mortgage already and a car thats not on finance. But once the defaults kick in I'm stuck for 6 years which just seems an awful long time just now. Trying to reassure myself that in the long run this is waaaaay better. Would you agree with that?
It sounds like you haven't quite got the to point of 'no credit, ever again' if you're planning 6 years before you're no longer 'stuck'. All that can happen in 6 years is that your credit file will be cleared of the defaults and people will give you more credit. I would urge caution in this approach. I don't think I could trust myself with credit now, no matter how 'in control' I feel now. I don't want to even consider the possibility of getting to this point again. So I will never take on credit ever again. Ever. If I don't have the money for something, I'll do without for a wee bit and save for it, like i'm doing now for the camper.

To answer your question though, Yes, in the long run this is way better, as you're now dealing with that ball and chain of debt round your ankle, and when it's gone, at your DFD, all your money will be your own. This is definitely the better way.



Also, my creditors are Tesco, Sainsburys, Capital One, BOS and Barclaycard. Has anyone had any particularly difficult times with any of these creditors on a DMP? I've read that HSBC can be a bit of a pain - thankfully I'm not with them - but are any of these known to be the awkward?

Only two of those I have experience with. Capital One have frozen interest and charges and defaulted me immediately, which is good. Barclaycard have reduced interest to 3%. Not 0%, but it doesn't suck.



Thanks in advance for any advice you have. I'm glad to finally being part of the DMP 'club'!

Welcome to the club I've never known a more supportive and helpful club as this one.

talisker78

Thanks for responding. Just to clarify when I said that i will be stuck for six years, I just meant the mortgage. I have no intention of running up credit bills again. One mistake in life I learned the hard way unfortunately.

However, we would at some point like a larger house, especially as the kids grow up. We should be ok for six years, but my only worry is getting a mortgage in the future after i've got 5 defaults....

Anyone have any experience with getting mortgages on a dmp or after defaults have expired? I know I'm thinking way too far in advance, i guess I just like to know my options!

Thank you for the warm welcome.

cleokat

talisker78 wrote: »

Thanks for responding. Just to clarify when I said that i will be stuck for six years, I just meant the mortgage. I have no intention of running up credit bills again. One mistake in life I learned the hard way unfortunately.

However, we would at some point like a larger house, especially as the kids grow up. We should be ok for six years, but my only worry is getting a mortgage in the future after i've got 5 defaults....

Anyone have any experience with getting mortgages on a dmp or after defaults have expired? I know I'm thinking way too far in advance, i guess I just like to know my options!

Thank you for the warm welcome.

I've been wondering the same thing. Once the 6 years is up, is your credit record completely clear or can it continue to have an impact on your ability to get a mortgage? Like you, I am soooo never getting credit again but I'll definitely need another mortgage in the future...

In other news I just found out my student loan only has about another 3.5 years to run which is about the same length as my DMP would be so by the time I'm 36 my money will be my own. I'll actually have spare money... Madness!!