DMP & Mutual Support Thread - Part 8

Ellieseleven

wannabee_in_credit wrote: »

OMG, thanks for showing me this thread. It's going to keep me occupied for hours.

It certainly brightened my days early on when I thought that there was no way out!:)

PinotGrigio41

Morning all,

Just to add my two penath re the phone calls. I was petrified initially, didn't answer the phone for approx 2 years (just let the answer phone take it ) until I finally had my LBM, then as many other posters here, once I was finally in the process of setting up my DMP I became full of courage and found that generally all creditors were really helpful and pleasant . After the DMp was in full swing the calls quickly stopped and I now actually pick up the phone.:)

Have to admit though that there were times when the calls drove me so mad that I would pick up, then leave the phone in front of a very dull radio programme or tv programme and then let them listen to that for a while until they got fed up. Such was my warped sense of humour at times !!:)

AmyV_2

I am pretty sure when my husband set up his DMP 3 years ago that we wrote to all his creditors and asked for any phone numbers to removed from their databases and that he wanted all future contact to be in writing. He also changed his mobile phone no. just for good measure, but we had no problem with calls after that. (I am sure you can quote some code of conduct or something - if you want any more details give me a shout and I'll dig out the wording).

He does now ring some of the creditors sometimes when they send letters as he knows the ones who will deal reasonably with him on the phone. They usually ask him for a contact number and he just tells them he doesn't want to give them that info and they never push it.

:-)

sickasachip13

Hi-de-hi to the new people here, nice to see you :T

On the phone calls - caller display was our friend, if we didn't recognise the number, we didn't answer. We also put call-minder on to answer immediately for a few days, just to give us some respite.

On the mobiles, a couple of the creditors had my mobile number but no-one had Mr SAACs. When we did start speaking to creditors, I told them I didn't have a mobile any more because I couldn't afford it and that Mr SAAC's was provided by his work and we weren't allowed to give anyone the number. No-one argued or hassled and just accepted it.

After the first few days I generally answered the calls tbh. If you have to ring them back it costs you, so I figured it was cheaper for me to answer. I didn't mind doing it and if they got arsey I just told them to speak to CCCS (always kept my ref number and CCCS contact number next to phone).

Don't be scared by them - you've done nothing wrong.

SAAC

Finshopefulmum

Afternoon everyone

Just received a phone call from a very friendly and helpful James at CCCS, just making sure I'd received my pack and going through what I need to do. I was quite nervous about speaking to him as I prefer the annonimity of being online (am feeling quite unworthy and ashamed) but he was not at all judgemental, even when he was obviously looking at the huge amount of debt I have amassed.

I'm steeling myself at the moment as I will start to cancel my direct debits from Wednesday on. Have decided I will be pro active and make the calls to my creditors rather than wait for the calls to happen. I think I have anyway as just typing that suddenly sent a surge of butterflies to my stomach!

Hope you're all having a good day.

x

mon1o

Thankyou all for your input regarding the calls. I think ill just have to do as you say SAAC and keep my cccs ref number close to the phone and bite the bullet and answer.

I have a quick question, dont shoot me down or anything but we have a caravan. shes a lovely caravan and has given us many holidays and memories over the past 2 years since we bought her. This year though, we cant afford to go away so i am considering selling her. shes worth around £5k-£7k obviously the sensible thing would be to sell and clear some of the debt but it wont even pay half of what i owe (which makes me feel really angry at how bad ive let it get!) so i was wondering if we sold the caravan would i be able to keep the money we make from her in a savings account and use this as our "emergency fund" seeing as though i havent budgeted anything more than £5 per month for this on my CCCS debt remedy (because i dont have anymore than that at the moment)

Or will CCCS make me put it towards clearing my debt?

Sammy246

I've been reading some of the previous thread and must say it is so nice to read other peoples thoughts of this pain in the bum debt and no money situation.

I have been looking into DMP but just not sure, currently I am upto date with all minimum payments but just feel like I am getting know where as they are so many with fairly big balances...

I am due some inheritance a the end of the year not sure exact date, so really don't know what to do for the best...

mon1o

Sammy up until this month i was uptodate with all my payments, i was managing to keep our heads above water (only just) but weve had some bad luck and it was getting to the point where i was looking into taking out more debt to pay the debt if you know what i mean. thats when i just decided enough was enough (plus i was turned down a secured loan because of the amount i already owe!) I had 2 options: a)ignore the problem and carry on as i was or b) face it, realise things were only going to get worse if i ignored it and do something about it. Thanks to the wonderful people on here im now getting everything together to send to CCCS and start my DMP.

What makes it easier to deal with its that its me calling the shots - im going to be paying what I can afford, not what some bigwig at the bank is telling me i have to. Take a look at your situation and see how long you can sustain it for, if you cant sustain it in the long term a DMP may be the way forward but it depends on your circumstances and im clearly no expert on the matter.

Good Luck x

mary_hinge

Hi all,

Well all my paper work/evidence for cccs has been posted today, all letters and token payments to creditiors went wednesday, all new DD's are set up and all wages/tax credits are now paying in to my new account. Have sorted out my online banking and just working on my budget now. :eek:

BlushingRose

Sammy246 wrote: »

I've been reading some of the previous thread and must say it is so nice to read other peoples thoughts of this pain in the bum debt and no money situation.

I have been looking into DMP but just not sure, currently I am upto date with all minimum payments but just feel like I am getting know where as they are so many with fairly big balances...

I am due some inheritance a the end of the year not sure exact date, so really don't know what to do for the best...

We too were up to date with our payments, we had no defaults. However, our payments were so high that we had no actual money at all and were having to pay for everything on the credit cards. So, money came out of the account to pay off the cards and the loan, which left us with nothing to live on, so that went onto a card....until, eventually, it was getting to the point where we had no credit left on the card either...