DMP & Mutual Support Thread - Part 8

Prowler1973

I have just come home to a letter from IQOR to my partner. It states that they will make a home visit. Really worried. I have just sent off my details for DMP. Can anyone anyone advise?
Thanks in advance.

Freshstart2012

Hi

Check the wording of the letter you have received very carefully. I say this as I once received a postcard from Halifax stating " we will be calling your home on such a date at such a time" instantly I panicked as I thought it meant in person, when it actually meant we will be telephoning your home. Tactics to make you panic and telephone them.

If they are going to calll around you can either send them a letter via recorded/special delivery telling them that they are not welcome blah blah blah, there's a template around here somewhere for this purpose, maybe someone in the know can point you in the right direction

Or you could just let them visit as they have no rights at all, all they can do is ask you to pay and you can respond by telling them that you are in the process of setting up a DMP and your DMP provider will contact them directly with an offer of repayment. You can do this through the letterbox or just don't bother answering the door.

The likelihood is that they will not call and they are just trying to scare you. They would be very very busy if they had to personally call at every debtors home.

Ellieseleven

MrDJB192 wrote: »

My initial hope disappeared today....nothing really caused it. I had to sit down and write all the letters to my creditors advising that I was attempting to set up a debt management plan and I filled in the rest of the paperwork for stepchange.

Yesterday i was all guns blazing, today the scale of my issues over the last few years has hit me like a ton of bricks. I've become a very negative person and i'm determined to push on to becoming the positive person I used to be - but I have this recurrent mind movie of a call from step change where they basically turn to me with the term - "Creditors say NO!"

How often do creditors refuse DMP as an option?

Hi there, just wanted to add my two pennyworth - the first few weeks on a DMP are a real roller coaster and your feelings are perfectly natural. I can remember the feelings of guilt that I had failed to make full payments to our credit cards after many years of making minimum payments and my mis-placed loyalty to the bank that I had been with for over 20 years (they have been the worst to deal with!)


All of these feelings were mixed up with feelings of utter relief that we were finally doing something about the terrible situation that we found ourselves in.


Now just over 2 years in on our DMP we have reduced our DFD by over 4 years, we budget for the things we need and we have a restful nights sleep! My health has improved and I now look forward to the future rather than dread what is going to happen.


Keep strong and hang in there, it will be worth it!


Take care
Ellie xx

Prowler1973

Freshstart2012 wrote: »

Hi

Check the wording of the letter you have received very carefully. I say this as I once received a postcard from Halifax stating " we will be calling your home on such a date at such a time" instantly I panicked as I thought it meant in person, when it actually meant we will be telephoning your home. Tactics to make you panic and telephone them.

If they are going to calll around you can either send them a letter via recorded/special delivery telling them that they are not welcome blah blah blah, there's a template around here somewhere for this purpose, maybe someone in the know can point you in the right direction

Or you could just let them visit as they have no rights at all, all they can do is ask you to pay and you can respond by telling them that you are in the process of setting up a DMP and your DMP provider will contact them directly with an offer of repayment. You can do this through the letterbox or just don't bother answering the door.

The likelihood is that they will not call and they are just trying to scare you. They would be very very busy if they had to personally call at every debtors home.

Thanks for the reply. The letter states that the may send someone around. I told HI to ask for all correspondence in writing - after a bit of a do. They stated that would be ok. I think that is why the letter was sent.
DMP agreement and proof of Income to be sent tomorrow. This forum is a Godsend.

stupid-fool

Lloyds TSB have stressed me out today.

Their loans collection dept originally accepted our DMP and wrote to us accepting the arrangement expecting a payment on 1st December and then monthly. This isn't what StepChange had told them - which was that I would pay SC on 1st and SC would pay Lloyds TSB on 25th of each month.

So I rang them on 12th November and informed them of their mistake, they wouldn't accept it from me so I called SC who told me that they would resend the paperwork. I also sent a letter to Lloyds myself confirming the information.

Today I've had a letter about both of our loans stating that we breached the arrangement, it is now cancelled and that they will be going for our bank accounts.

I called again today and they won't discuss it with me - but instead want SC to call them. I then rang SC and the lady I spoke to was unusually abrupt, told me that Lloyds should know that they always pay on 25th and that should couldn't possibly ring Lloyds as if they did that they would all be on the phone to Lloyds constantly due to the number of customers they have. She said the would resend the paperwork AGAIN!!

So I'm now left snookered - Lloyds screwed up and will only talk to SC, but SC won't take any real action to solve it. In the mean time Lloyds have cancelled the arrangements and will go after my bank accounts. I feel let down by SC as I would have been better off managing my own DMP in this case.

I'm fuming :mad: and will be sending a recorded delivery letter to Lloyds tomorrow with a formal complaint. I included the fact that they are still adding interest to the loans (its done monthly on our loans) to boot - in for a penny, in for a pound.

alyxzandra

Time_to_face_the_music wrote: »

We are lucky enough not to have debt with Barclaycard but I am with HH all the way on M&S being the worst of them all.

No reduction in interest whatsoever and charging 24.9%, no defaults, they don't believe we are in financial difficulty yet they mark us as 4 month in arrears with payments on our credit report and we have never missed a payment :mad:

I must be really lucky with Barclaycard as they have stopped all interest from the start. In fact, they were the easiest ones to deal with! And defaulted us from the start. From what I have read about M+S seems like we are lucky we have nothing with them. With your debt how can they not see there is a financial difficulty??????? :eek:

Time_to_face_the_music

Ellieseleven wrote: »

Hi there, just wanted to add my two pennyworth - the first few weeks on a DMP are a real roller coaster and your feelings are perfectly natural. I can remember the feelings of guilt that I had failed to make full payments to our credit cards after many years of making minimum payments and my mis-placed loyalty to the bank that I had been with for over 20 years (they have been the worst to deal with!)


All of these feelings were mixed up with feelings of utter relief that we were finally doing something about the terrible situation that we found ourselves in.


Now just over 2 years in on our DMP we have reduced our DFD by over 4 years, we budget for the things we need and we have a restful nights sleep! My health has improved and I now look forward to the future rather than dread what is going to happen.


Keep strong and hang in there, it will be worth it!


Take care
Ellie xx

10 months in, we still have the occasional bad day with bank rage, it was OH's turn at NatWest yesterday and the air was blue by the time he got off the phone! The FOS swear they have resolved the case and NatWest will no longer charge interest but they still send us a letter almost every day stating that we have done nothing to resolve our debt and we need to call them urgently to set up a payment arrangement or they will hand the OD to debt collectors who may send someone to the house. OH started off by politely pointing out that the OD started at £5000 and is now down to just under £2000 so how can they think we are not paying it off :mad:

Generally though it's a million times better than it was before so the good days out weigh the bad ones.

It sounds like it's all going really well Ellie and your feelings echo my own so much.

I hope you have a lovely Christmas and here's to lots more debt reduction in the New Year :j

TTFTM x

Time_to_face_the_music

stupid-fool wrote: »

Lloyds TSB have stressed me out today.

Their loans collection dept originally accepted our DMP and wrote to us accepting the arrangement expecting a payment on 1st December and then monthly. This isn't what StepChange had told them - which was that I would pay SC on 1st and SC would pay Lloyds TSB on 25th of each month.

So I rang them on 12th November and informed them of their mistake, they wouldn't accept it from me so I called SC who told me that they would resend the paperwork. I also sent a letter to Lloyds myself confirming the information.

Today I've had a letter about both of our loans stating that we breached the arrangement, it is now cancelled and that they will be going for our bank accounts.

I called again today and they won't discuss it with me - but instead want SC to call them. I then rang SC and the lady I spoke to was unusually abrupt, told me that Lloyds should know that they always pay on 25th and that should couldn't possibly ring Lloyds as if they did that they would all be on the phone to Lloyds constantly due to the number of customers they have. She said the would resend the paperwork AGAIN!!

So I'm now left snookered - Lloyds screwed up and will only talk to SC, but SC won't take any real action to solve it. In the mean time Lloyds have cancelled the arrangements and will go after my bank accounts. I feel let down by SC as I would have been better off managing my own DMP in this case.

I'm fuming :mad: and will be sending a recorded delivery letter to Lloyds tomorrow with a formal complaint. I included the fact that they are still adding interest to the loans (its done monthly on our loans) to boot - in for a penny, in for a pound.

Lloyds TSB are useless and their collections department are a joke, I have yet to have any communication with them which resulted in a meaningful outcome.

When you complain to them, mention that you will have no option but to resort to assistance from the FOS, if Lloyds themselves do not resolve your complaint. Then give them the exact time limit and contact the FOS.

What do you mean about Lloyds going after your bank accounts? I thought you had opened a new safe account and your money was going in there? If you have any money remaining in Lloyds, transfer it over immediately to ensure it is safe. It's unusual for banks to warn about offsetting, the first time you find out is usually after they have done it so check this ASAP please.

If you do consider going it alone rather than StepChange/CCCS, check this out:

http://mymoney.nedcab.org.uk/moneyadvice/signup.asp

I hope you have a lovely Christmas and here's to lots of debt reduction in the New Year :j

TTFTM x

Time_to_face_the_music

alyxzandra wrote: »

I must be really lucky with Barclaycard as they have stopped all interest from the start. In fact, they were the easiest ones to deal with! And defaulted us from the start. From what I have read about M+S seems like we are lucky we have nothing with them. With your debt how can they not see there is a financial difficulty??????? :eek:

Am very happy to hear you had no issues with Barclaycard :j

I think the problem with M&S is minimum payments. Although we have massive debt, we do make a very large DMP payment each month. So thanks to CCCS/StepChange's method of payment allocation, we were at or very close to the minimum payment on several debts very quickly. M&S believe that if you can afford the minimum payment, you are not in financial difficulty :mad:

I hope you have a lovely Christmas and here's to lots more debt reduction in the New Year :j

TTFTM x

stupid-fool

Time_to_face_the_music wrote: »

What do you mean about Lloyds going after your bank accounts? I thought you had opened a new safe account and your money was going in there? If you have any money remaining in Lloyds, transfer it over immediately to ensure it is safe. It's unusual for banks to warn about offsetting, the first time you find out is usually after they have done it so check this ASAP please.

Thanks.

You are correct that I have moved everything to a safe bank account, but Lloyds had informed me that they were leaving my Lloyds TSB accounts alone and can be operated normally. I'm not using them now, but because of the way they offered to manage my OD via a monthly reductions to the limit, there is unused credit available.

My fear is that if they take money from the OD, the banking teams will then say that I'm still using my current account for additional credit and start applying interest & charges again.