DMP & Mutual Support Thread - Part 8

Tigsmom

bertman wrote: »

I was thinking about your post Tigsmom, we have been on a DMP for 3 months now and all but two creditors have frozen interest, I think over the next week or so I will really push these two to reduce or stop the interest, its time for me to bombard them for a change!! I will let you know how I get on.

HSBC is our largest/longest debt and the one still adding charges/interest. However, we are currently paying only around £20 less than the usual minimum payment. If I go solo dmp based on my wages it will reduce the payments to them by around £100 a month thus extending the dmp by god knows how many years. I'm assuming that this would be the breaking point for them and they would see it as a pain in the a**e then and sell it on. Hopefully that would be how I can get the interest taken off. At the same time the £100 that DH subsidises my HSBC payment will go the clear his debts a lot quicker as his creditors have all reduced or frozen interest.

Time_to_face_the_music

The more I think about this, the more I think your idea of going solo on that one debt makes perfect sense.

Go for it Tigsmom

Hopelessly_Hopeful

Tigsmom wrote: »

HSBC is our largest/longest debt and the one still adding charges/interest. However, we are currently paying only around £20 less than the usual minimum payment. If I go solo dmp based on my wages it will reduce the payments to them by around £100 a month thus extending the dmp by god knows how many years. I'm assuming that this would be the breaking point for them and they would see it as a pain in the a**e then and sell it on. Hopefully that would be how I can get the interest taken off. At the same time the £100 that DH subsidises my HSBC payment will go the clear his debts a lot quicker as his creditors have all reduced or frozen interest.

I agree with Ms TTFTM, solo all the way. Having the lowest DMP payment possible increases your chance of debt reduction IMHO.


I have a HSBC debt, they finally agreed to 6.5% interest but made me sign a CCA which strictly speaking is not allowed on a DMP. They sold the idea to me it's not a 'new' credit and I signed on good will before CCCS frowned upon me

HHx

NaughtySpot

stupid-fool wrote: »

Can anyone give me an idea of what to expect?

[*]Will I be bombarded with debt collection attempts and threats?
[*]Is it really likely that interest charges will be suspended or will we end up with huge additional charges?
[*]How do our specific creditors (LloydsTSB, Tesco, Sygma, Santander) tend to behave in a DMP situation?
[*]I know this will hit our credit scores for some years to come, but how bad will this get. Will I be able to get mobile phone contracts, gas and electricity accounts etc or will it get bad enough to be facing pre-payment meters and absolutely no credit options. We have 3 teenage kids who know nothing about this and I think hitting rock bottom would totally destroy us.
[/LIST]

I need to understand if DMP is really the right way to go and what sort of life we will have for the next 6 years or more?

Thanks for reading

Welcome to the thread.

We started our DMP in January this year, and we have a similar length of DMP to yours. It is without doubt the best thing we have ever done.


We made token payments in December last year, having never missed a payment at all. I had a couple of phone calls from one of our creditors in January, a few letters when we went into arrears but that has been it. One of our creditors (Natwest) are refusing to acknowledge our DMP and aren't playing, but apart from monthly letters advising of fees I haven't heard anything from them.

We have four creditors; MBNA, Natwest, Santander and Sainsburys. The MBNA and Santander CC have stopped interest, but the loans no. Natwest (OD and CC) are heaping charges on top of charges atm)

I have had a new mobile phone contract whilst on my DMP, changed my gas and electric supplier twice and had no problems with either. I have no intention of ever using a CC again so am not bothered about my credit.


Life is lived fairly simply now, and there'll be no holidays next year as there wasn't this year, but the relief when (if you stick to your budget) there is money for car tax and christmas etc is amazing. We no longer rob Peter to pay Paul! Sacrifices have to be made, and you will need to explain your worries to your kids I think, but it'll be a good lesson for them IMO. It is hard, but I tell myself this is our fault and we need to put it right.

Good luck with what you decide.

Growurown

Time_to_face_the_music wrote: »

We are all guilty of burying our heads in the sand and denying things are as bad as they are

Oh no it is ostrich syndrome again. I suffered with this complaint for years but got cured by CCCS debt remedy:D

SARAHJANE

Time_to_face_the_music wrote: »

Hi SARAHJANE :hello:

That is likely to be a very long DMP at a predicted 23+ years, if all your creditors stop interest

Is it likely that your payments to your creditors are likely to be able to increase over time? if so, this could obviously cut down the length of your DMP.

Did National Debtline give you any other options or suggestions? It could be worth giving CCCS or Payplan a call and seeing what they suggest.

ndl have just passed on our paperwork to cccs , they will contact us asap .

BevieB

I have just received a letter from the FOS regarding the Halifax CC debt. They state that because the Halifax has reduced payments (I pay approx £120pmth interest and £10 off capital) they have not done anything wrong as they have no obligation to freeze interest. Therefore I will be old and grey before I will pay off this debt as owe over £12K.
I just feel p---ed off that all of our creditors and there are a lot have suspended interest or reduced to very low amounts.
We have reduced our payments to CCCS since review which will mean that our payment for the Halifax will not cover interest. Would I need to write again to them to reduce payments as debt will increase?
Does any one know how long the Halifax will wait before defaulting me and selling off debt as been on DMP for over 1 year.

Giraffeseeker

Hi, I haven't posted on here for a while as my DMP has been ticking along nicely.

Found a cool little app to help me keep track of my debts as I never really know where I am what with statements coming on different dates and the CCCS holding onto my payment for 20 days.

Just entering it all into the app has made me focus on my interest rates and I wonder if any of you think it is worth a shot getting them reduced further, and if so, how do I do that?

I have 5 debts:

Santander CC; balance £1659; payment £37; interest 0%
Barclaycard CC; balance £5976; payment £124; interest 6.9%
First Direct loan; balance £2408; payment £124; interest 6.7%

Virgin CC; balance £6900; payment £149 - this one is interesting as the statements have monthly interest at 0.3233%, which I have worked out is 3.95%, and yet I have a letter which says three times that they are reducing my interest to 3.90%... before I ring them, am I right? Does 0.3233% monthly = 3.95% apr?

I also have a very large loan with a current balance of just over 19K where the interest was front loaded BUT they are charging me interest on the amount of the arrears, which is increasing monthly by £110 - so the "additional interest" has gone from £5 to £10 per month in the past 5 months (although oddly it occasionally goes down). I have no idea what the rate is, it doesn't appear on the statement (yes, just one statement since my DMP started in January) they have sent me and they have never informed me of the rate. Anyone know if I can do anything about that? It's with HSPF.

Thanks!
Tintingirl

jubilee14

HI all am getting worried about Halifax as i have OD loan and CC. THey have agreed to freeze interest on loan for 30 days on the CC but not on the OD. I am worried that because i have so much with HBOS and noone yet seems to have posted that they have frozen or reduced interest. i may end up defaulting but all the value of debt increasing dramatically if i never pay off any capital.

Does anyone have positive news on HBOS re interest rates?

BevieB

jubilee14 wrote: »

HI all am getting worried about Halifax as i have OD loan and CC. THey have agreed to freeze interest on loan for 30 days on the CC but not on the OD. I am worried that because i have so much with HBOS and noone yet seems to have posted that they have frozen or reduced interest. i may end up defaulting but all the value of debt increasing dramatically if i never pay off any capital.

Does anyone have positive news on HBOS re interest rates?

We had no problem getting them to stop interest/charges on the OD which is about £1800. I rang them to request it and now they review every 6 months.
The CCs are another thing my husband and I have 1 each and are our largest debt. They always freeze interest on CC for 30 days until they can arrange re payment plan then they seem to calculate interest rate on the amount you pay. Eg if you pay £120 on a £12,000 debt they cal that by charging 12per your repayment will cover interest and small amount of capital therefore ensuring they stay within regs (am I being cynical?)