DMP & Mutual Support Thread - Part 8

gamblebee

Hi. I'm new to this forum. Got £70K of debt and though CCCS recommended IVA, I opted for DMP because I know that it's very unlikely that I will get 75% of approval from my creditors. I also want to be responsible for these debts and would like to pay them completely (I do believe in karma!!!)though I know it will take me a long time. i will be paying £780+/month from Sept 1.
I've got 12 creditors and have set up DMP since beginning of August but opted to have it started by Sept 1. I have fallen into arrears and didn't make any token payment to my creditors as I really couldn't afford it.
I have recieved response from some of my creditors and as expected, most of them don't want to accept the reduced payment proposal. So far, out of 13 creditors, 2 of them allowed to stop charging interest but they have the lowest debt on my DMP. I have one debt of £18k with Natwest which will incur an interest of £270/mo (I used to pay 400+/mo before going into DMP). Now I am worried that if they will continue to charge me with interest, the monthly payment that is due to them is less than the interest they will charge me. What must I do? I'm concerned that instead of reducing my debt with them, the amount will just increase every month. Please shed light as I'm sick and tired of thinking about this.
Also, my other creditor, Nationwide kept on calling me but I dare not answer any of their call. Is it okay or shall I answer and tell them I'm having financial difficulty? I have been in touch with CCCS about this but they said that they have informed all my creditors about my statusincluding Nationwide. Anybody who have been in debt with Nationwide and have resorted in going into DMP?
What will be the next thing that I would expect to happen being new in DMP? What will be the worst case scenarios?
Please help if you are in the same or have been in this kind of situation.
What does it mean if some of the creditors don't reply because I haven't recieve any response from some of my creditors and my balance with them are between 5K-9K.
Any response will be greatly appreciated....

Time_to_face_the_music

Hi gamblebee and welcome :hello:

Well done on starting up your DMP with CCCS :T

Lots of phone calls at the start up of a DMP is a very familiar situation to people here. CCCS do inform all of our creditors but it appears that departments within banks do not speak to each other and the message does not get through. The calls do eventually die down and ours stopped within a few weeks, we either ignored them or just replied "We are on a DMP with CCCS, our reference number is XXXXXXX, you need to speak to them" and put the phone down. For anonymous calls, we even resorted to pretending it was an answering machine message

We are 7 months into our DMP and we still haven't heard back from some of our creditors but they seem to be the ones who just accepted it and carried on sending the statements showing the payment from CCCS and reduced or no interest :T

Of course it's not all good news and some still insist on charging full interest, negating the CCCS payment and increasing the time of the debt. Our first months with NatWest were very bad but that was on an overdraft, they were better with a credit card which they stopped interest on after a couple of months. You haven't mentioned what your NatWest debt is, is it a OD, CC or loan? They seem to treat them differently and you will find that people here have different experiences with different banks. It appears to be a bit of a lottery how creditors act and we never know quite what to expect :mad:

We don't have any experience with Nationwide but am sure someone will be along who does.

If creditors insist on still charging you interest, you need to be pro-active and complain and ask them to stop it. If you do this and they still charge, get the Financial Ombudsman (FOS) involved. Check out this link for more information

http://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/consumer/complaints.htm

After 8 weeks, they will intervene and ask the bank the reasons for charging you and if they think your request is reasonable, try to get the charges stopped. We have found them extremely helpful and efficient :A

Like you, we want to pay back every penny we owe but we do not see why we should pay any more interest than we absolutely need to. The banks have had their pound of flesh over and over again and they are most definitely only fair weather friends, one sniff of financial difficulties and you turn from a valued customer to a debt ridden pariah overnight :mad:

Use these forums for advice and support, I have found them so useful and a real lifesaver. I know things now that I had no inkling of 7 months ago and we use this information on a daily basis, trying to get our debt free date (DFD) closer. So please stick around and let us know how you are getting on

Hopelessly_Hopeful

Welcome gamblebee. Good advice from TTFTM there

HHx

Tigsmom

Hi Gamblebee,

Don't answer the calls because the bank know you have no record of them so they use them to threaten/bully you into paying more than you can afford. Write to them asking them to stop calling, remove you from their system and contact you or cccs in writing only. You will probably find that they will stop in a few weeks anyway once the dmp is underway. I know you didn't send tokens but have you written to your creditors telling them you're starting on a dmp? Yes they are a pain but I find they're better if you feed them with information and are honest with them. We got a letter from one of ours saying they accept our reduced payments but will still charge a reduced interest. I wrote asking them to reconsider this as it will prolong our debt and explained that our circumstances will not change for a few years so they are unlikely to get any more money from us for a while. I'm waiting for a reply. I think it is easy to be scared of creditors and what they might do to you so therefore you become defensive/aggressive with them. Be honest with them and keep appealing and they might back down. If not write to FOS and let them get aggressive! Good luck. CCCS have a fair system and many creditors know this and prefer dealing with them rather than individuals. Hang in there and it will all settle down.

grantalien

gamblebee wrote: »

Hi. I'm new to this forum. Got £70K of debt and though CCCS recommended IVA, I opted for DMP because I know that it's very unlikely that I will get 75% of approval from my creditors. I also want to be responsible for these debts and would like to pay them completely (I do believe in karma!!!)though I know it will take me a long time. i will be paying £780+/month from Sept 1.
I've got 12 creditors and have set up DMP since beginning of August but opted to have it started by Sept 1. I have fallen into arrears and didn't make any token payment to my creditors as I really couldn't afford it.
I have recieved response from some of my creditors and as expected, most of them don't want to accept the reduced payment proposal. So far, out of 13 creditors, 2 of them allowed to stop charging interest but they have the lowest debt on my DMP. I have one debt of £18k with Natwest which will incur an interest of £270/mo (I used to pay 400+/mo before going into DMP). Now I am worried that if they will continue to charge me with interest, the monthly payment that is due to them is less than the interest they will charge me. What must I do? I'm concerned that instead of reducing my debt with them, the amount will just increase every month. Please shed light as I'm sick and tired of thinking about this.
Also, my other creditor, Nationwide kept on calling me but I dare not answer any of their call. Is it okay or shall I answer and tell them I'm having financial difficulty? I have been in touch with CCCS about this but they said that they have informed all my creditors about my statusincluding Nationwide. Anybody who have been in debt with Nationwide and have resorted in going into DMP?
What will be the next thing that I would expect to happen being new in DMP? What will be the worst case scenarios?
Please help if you are in the same or have been in this kind of situation.
What does it mean if some of the creditors don't reply because I haven't recieve any response from some of my creditors and my balance with them are between 5K-9K.
Any response will be greatly appreciated....

I would answer any calls and explains that you are on an DMP - Serach these forums for my experiences with Nationwide. I wil be honest they are not that positive (ish) as I ended up having to go to court for 2 CC balances, the judge did not look kindly on NW and although I have 2 CCJs against me, that is all (to be honest the further into my journey I realise this is not all bad as once the 6 years have gone so have they from my file)

Good luck and do what you feel comfortable with - NEVER agree to paying more than you can afford (according to your budget) - I found communication with my creditors helped.

marzom

Hi,

Like many, I am new to DMP, started in June 2012 and this is my very first post.

For years I have struggled with debt and hoped it would sort itself out one day. It did not. It ended up giving me palpitations and sleepless nights.

CCCS were great and it did not take long for those palpitations and sleepless nights to disappear once I started on the DMP.

Now they are back. Why? Natwest, thats why.

I have written to them twice, once with the standard CCCS letter and once again when they continued to charge interest and £6 a day unauthorised overdraft fee.

Their latest is to send me a letter saying that they intend to demand payment of the Total Amount outstanding (if necessary by Court action) on or after 18/09/12. And also put another £500 onto my arrears.

Now what do I do. The DMP was my last resort and it looks as though it is going to fail due to one creditor. All the others have accepted my payment and stopped interest. Do I ask CCCS to contact Natwest or do I do it again?

Any advice?

Time_to_face_the_music

Hi Marzom and welcome :hello:

We had terrible problems with NatWest at the start of our DMP, and 7 months in, they are still charging full interest on an overdraft account.

We found that departments in NatWest appeared to have no communication whatsoever between them and that every letter they have sent us is pretty much gobbledegook. We currently have the FOS attempting to stop the interest charges but whether they get anywhere or not is another matter.

Have NatWest ever acknowledged your DMP or sent a letter accepting the offer of payment? Are the CCCS payments showing up as credits on your account?

I think you should phone and ask CCCS to contact them again tomorrow and also get the FOS involved. I don't think your DMP will fail but you may need to deal with NatWest separately if they won't co-operate wth CCCS.

Sorry this has you so stressed at the moment. Good luck and please let us know how you get on.

teddyp

Tigsmom wrote: »

:whistle: (Pink panther tune)

Well done everyone. Can I add to the joy and tell you I've just won a family ticket to a theme park today? The kids are really excited! Just need car to pass MOT on Monday so we can get there :rotfl:Hope you are all having a great weekend. It's nice to lift the spirits every now and again (keep burning Talisker )

well done on the tickets ! comping is a great hobby isnt it x

gamblebee

Thanks Ttftm and to everyone who replied.
My account with NATWEST are c/c (didn't get any reply whether they are accepting the proposals or interest will be frozen), o/d (no reply as well from them and continue to get charged from them, constantly keeping an eye on my account that the interest they charge me doesn't go beyond my agreed overdraft limit otherwise they will charge £6/day and I've been charged 24 already which I paid) and a personal loan (which continuously adding up interest of 270/month and my monthly reduced payment with them will be less than 200 I think). I have been with them for 12 yrs so I have different accts and debts with them and they used to be my main acct for 12 yrs.
With nationwide, I responded and contacted them before when they constantly sending me SMS and phone calls but I felt that they really treating me !!!! during our conversation so since then, I never answered their calls and I think people here will understand.
I would like to write to NATWEST and nationwide to stop charging me interest or if they can't, at least reduced interest will do. Can somebody help me with letter and who to address the lett. A template or a link will be a great help for me, or can I ask Cccs to do this to my creditors inmy behalf.
Thanks everyone....

Time_to_face_the_music

We used something like this:

Us
Date

Them


Dear Sir/Madam

Account No: XXXXXXXXXX

Thank you for your letter of DD-MM-YYYY concerning the above account. We are sorry that you feel unable to suspend interest charges on the above account. The majority of our other creditors have agreed to the offer of payment and agreed to suspend any interest charges still accruing. They have accepted that to continue to charge interest would not assist us in our present financial difficulties, and can only serve to increase our total debt.

As you are aware, we have already paid considerable sums in interest to our account. If interest charges continue, the monthly instalments we are paying will not even cover that interest. Also, the cooperation of our other creditors who have agreed to freeze interest already would be put at risk.

We would therefore be grateful if you would reconsider your decision not to freeze the interest. This would mean that the monthly payments we make would actually reduce the balance outstanding to your company.

We look forward to hearing from you as soon as possible.

Yours faithfully