DMP & Mutual Support Thread - Part 8

sickasachip13

Hey G1W,

I remember you from a while back. Delighted to see how well you're getting on. I also spoke to my creditors, partly because I couldn't be patient enough for them all to write to me so decided to take give them a ring. I don't necessarily don't think it does any harm - so long as you're not agreeing to anything silly!

And, yes, having a bank account in the black is an amazing feeling!

Well done again

SAAC

sickasachip13

(oh yeah, on Argos, we were in this position but when the 0% period expired we successfully battered them down to nominal % only - took a few letters but got there eventually and have now cleared that debt)

ronaldont

Hi Everyone new to the forum first post, and encouraged by some of the story's on here!

First question to pick someones brain please!

How long does it usually take step change (CCCS) to get the DMP set up?

They now have all my correct statements etc. and have said they are looking at starting on 1st December is this realistic if they haven't agreed anything with my creditors yet?

carlyfluck

hi
we had our paper work emailled last thursday i emailled it back saturday with all statments etc screen shots and they phoned me yesterdat saying all was good to go.

so very quick but you need to change bank accounts and sort out dds and standing orders as well which i did on saturday and monday morning,

ronaldont

Thanks for the reply and that's great bank account has been changed so should be good to go

Enough_Now

Five out of nine DMP notification/token payment letters sent off today. Just Santander o/d and cards to go once my wages have landed in my new bank account at the end of the month.

They (except Santander) will probably get the StepChange letter before mine but at least they can't say I haven't informed them.

No going back now. I'm feeling quite apprehensive today but I know it will be worth it in the end. I hope I can join other posters in recording my debt reductions to motivate other DFWs to take the step.

Keeping my fingers crossed that the creditors will agree to interest and charge freeze. I know that my debt is likely to go up in the first few months whilst the DMP is is effect but this time next year I could have paid almost a third of my debt off. Let's hope so, eh?

grant1wish

Thanks Saac.

I will get prepared for an argos battle in the new year. I think HSBC are going to be my biggest problem.

I reclaimed bank charhes sucessfully a few yrs ago, and would love to try again. Worked out it is nearly 2k. However I feel this may rock the boat too much.

Has anyone done reclaiming whilst on a dmp?

Thanks

G1W

Growurown

Debtfreewannabe2 wrote: »

Hi everyone, I am a new member here wanting to get out of depts as soon as. Would appreciate any kibd of advice. Heres my situation: im in trouble with pdl conpanies. Because of that reasob u have decided to go for a payplan dmp. At thr moment im about to recieve a letter from the( the one i will have to send back) before they start phoninh my creditors. I have opened a new acount and will have my wages in there on friday which is my pay day and all loans are due to come off on friday. There are a few things i would like to ask: first of. Should i inform pdl conpanies about payplan or just wait and see what happens? ( if i should then how and whats the best way?) another question: is there a chance that pdl will take money from my account even if theres nothing in it? In fact the balance is -50(all planned overdraft used as well). But i hear stories about pdl companies taking fund anyway. Will that happen to me as well? Im with lloyds tsb. Thats it for a start thanks guys!

My experiences with PDL's is that they take money from your account on a 'continuous payment authority' (CPA) and you need to cancel this to stop them taking money from your account. Just cancelling your card is not sufficient. They won't know whether you have money in your account so they will try and take payment. If the bank allows the payment to go through that could potentially put you in an unauthorised overdraft (if there aren't enough funds in your account) and cost you a lot in charges. You could contact the companies and let them know your situation but I wouldn't trust them not to try and still take the money. If you don't contact them then they will soon contact you when they can't get their money. You should as a matter of urgency contact your bank to cancel the CPA. There is more information here:-

http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/banking/recurring-payments

antonic

Payplan have confirmed that ALL my 4 creditors have frozen interest & charges.

Only 7 months now for me till I am DF on 02/06/2013.

londonfraggle

Hi there - been quite a while since I last posted, so thought I'd pop in and say hi to the oldies who know me and :wave:to all the newbies on here.

Quick update! I'm now in the final stretch....woo hoo! Have about 3 months to go (would have been less but I reduced my payments a bit to pay towards our wedding - I'm running my DMP on my own now) a couple of months ago. I can't believe I am finally nearly at the end of tunnel - and the future looks very bright! Having had nearly £50k of debt it seems impossible that I'm finally here - and can really only say a huge thank you to the CCCS and this forum for getting me here and keeping me on the straight and narrow. It hasn't always been easy but it's always been doable...and there's always been a solution - no matter how bad or miserable things looked. So - to anyone feeling low (and I know you can in the run up to Xmas with no money and debt hanging over your heads) HANG ON IN THERE! It really is worth it.

My experience has generally been pretty good. I had some unusual circumstances (to do with the fact that I work overseas a lot and therefore have a lot of odd ad-hoc and unplanned expenses) but the CCCS were fab - and were always just at the end of the phone to help. Once my debt was down to a manageable level I decided to take it on and run it myself - meaning I could "snowball"some of the larger debts and pay off some of the smaller ones. This helped both psychologically and in getting rid of those that were still charging interest more quickly - bringing my DFD closer.

I know it's not over yet - my credit rating is shot to pieces and no doubt will be for a very long time to come - and I doubt I'll ever stop annoying my husband by doing price comparisons on EVERYTHING. But the good news is I won't ever allow myself to get into debt again. If I don't have the cash then I can't have it. If I need something expensive then I save for it. If an emergency arises then I have my emergency funds. Simples. (Well let's face it, it's not really else we wouldn't all be here, but at least we're all learning better habits!).

So no real words of wisdom - just hopefully some encouragement that it really is worth it and to just keep your eyes on the prize. I'll be back on here to raise a very large glass in a couple of months when I make that final payment - woohoo!
Fraggle x

ps - I notice there are a few people with pay day loan issues. My advice (and what happened in my situation) was (after I'd moved to a new basic bank account) to just let them take the money from the bank account they had the details for. Yes it meant my overdraft shot up and became huge BUT the bank account was going on the DMP anyway and (as the CCCS advised) the bank was a lot easier to deal with (and to agree to the DMP) than the PDL companies. Might not be the right solution for all but worked in my case - it was all going on the DMP anyway.