DMP & Mutual Support Thread - Part 8

Growurown

Vicki_Evans wrote: »

The thing is we recently purchased a car, we traded in our old car a 3yr old Nissan Qashqai that we got for nearly half price brand new (Nissan employee scheme) We could have sold it on and paid the finance with £4-6000 better off. I thought we could have got a descent car with that. She was adamant to buy a new one. Now were stuck with it, Its a great car I love it. The point being, for the first time in my life I had a great money saving idea kicked back in my face. I think i need to get some new MAN pants.

Chris

Ooh painful - but we have all made mistakes buying and selling stuff. My worst was not buying a house I saw. I was told it may need a new roof so passed it over - but in that area house prices sky rocketed, whereas where I did buy the prices went nowhere. It was gutting. Friends who bought in that area made over two hundred thousand in five years. We sold ours for a hundred thousand more than we purchased it for seventeen years later.

typhoo_2

Hi everyone,

Hope you're all well. I would appreciate some advice regarding my situation.

I started my DMP in January with three creditors. Barclaycard, MBNA, NatWest. BC and MBNA reduced interest and accepted my proposal and things with them have been ok so far.

NatWest have three accounts (loan, OD, CC). They kept telling CCCS they had 'no record of account'. I wrote numerous letters to NatWest, sent them my budget sheet, my proposal, token payments.

Today I received a letter back from NatWest. They said they are unable to accept my payment proposal and will be forwarding my account to Credit Management Services and starting legal proceedings...

I am so worried now. They have also refused to stop interest despite my repeated pleas. So these accounts are accruing interest at about £300 per month and it has been over three months since my first letter to them.

They have also not credited my token payments (sent as postal orders) and every letter that I send asking for a reason as to why, they just ignore!

What can I do? What will happen next? CCCS have about £800 that was due to NatWest that NatWest kept rejecting. The only account they haven't rejected for is my CC. That is £8 p/m but they are charging interest at £9 p/m so my debt is growing, I sent them a letter explaining this and haven't heard back. Can I complain to Financial Ombudsman? If so, what are my reasons?

Many many many thanks for reading and I would really appreciate your time to help me.

Thanks,
Typhoo

Time_to_face_the_music

Hi typhoo

We are in almost exactly the same situation with NatWest so you have my utmost sympathy. OH has a credit card and an overdraft, CC has been no problem, CCCS offer accepted and interest stopped. Overdraft is total opposite, CCCS offer declined and interest still at original level plus now an additional £6 per day charge for being over the overdraft limit :mad:

NatWest claim that their payment is not pro-rata, CCCS say it is. CCCS advise we make a complaint, which we have but the £6 per day was stressing me out so much that I broke all the rules on Friday and paid enough money into the account to take us back within the limit, until they received CCCS payment on Monday. This has left us penniless until next Friday plus owing money to our daughter but we have diesel in the car and food in the cupboard and freezer so fingers crossed we will manage. If I hadn't done this, the CCCS payment would still have left us outside the overdraft limit, even if NatWest accepted it, and so it would have gone on.

We complained to NatWest and quoted their customer charter to them. It probably won't do any good but it made me feel better. The next letter will be to the Financial Ombudsman, if we get no reply from NatWest. Have you spoken to CCCS about NatWest declining the payments? Now I am worried they will decline ours today.

KirstyO

I'm sorry to hear that Natwest seem to be the new bad guys. I'm fortunate not to have to deal with them. Just a little update on my DMP journey...

Lloyds CC have accepted reduced payments and frozen all future interest (or so they said in two identical letters send to me)
Vanquis CC had already accepted reduced payments of £20 from me before I started DMP which they agreed to for three months before review, I have managed to keep up these £20 plus DMP but hoping they will allow me just to drop to DMP payments at review.
Not a word from HSBC
Lloyds O/D...now here's the funny one. I got a letter from CCCS telling me that the creditor had refused reduced payment because the account was in credit. No money has gone into that account since December when I know for a fact it was nearly £300 overdawn because they sent me a lovely 'pay now or die' threat. (Clearly I did not pay, and as yet, I am not yet dead either). My issue now is, I don't really want to make contact with them, as I have finally stopped receiving daily junk from them, however when the unplanned O/D was as it's height, they swallowed my debit card from me, so now I have no way of checking the statement for it, as I never internet banked with them. The money to bring the account even has not been taken from my credit card account, and I have not paid anything in from any other sources. Any ideas?
Argos...well I think I've just confused Argos majorly. I have been paying them nice round numbers for as much as I could before I went on DMP, then recently my min payment dropped to sub £10 a month so I thought I'd just set up a DD for min payment each month. Then I set up my DMP. So now I tried to log on to Argos last night to make sure my balance was correct on DMP and now they want to 'talk to me regarding my account'. I can only assume that this is something to do with being contacted by CCCS but also having just set up a DD on the account?

OK, so what started as an update has turned into a complete monologue, but there's just a couple of things confusing me here! Hope someone can come up with some suggestions

Thanks in advance.....time to go and MOT the car (my poor battered debit card)

AmyV_2

typhoo wrote: »

Hi everyone,

Today I received a letter back from NatWest. They said they are unable to accept my payment proposal and will be forwarding my account to Credit Management Services and starting legal proceedings...

I am so worried now. They have also refused to stop interest despite my repeated pleas. So these accounts are accruing interest at about £300 per month and it has been over three months since my first letter to them.

They have also not credited my token payments (sent as postal orders) and every letter that I send asking for a reason as to why, they just ignore!

What can I do? What will happen next? CCCS have about £800 that was due to NatWest that NatWest kept rejecting. The only account they haven't rejected for is my CC. That is £8 p/m but they are charging interest at £9 p/m so my debt is growing, I sent them a letter explaining this and haven't heard back. Can I complain to Financial Ombudsman? If so, what are my reasons?

Hi Typhoo! have a read of message no. 904 from Fermi. Its an extract of the OFT guidelines, so the Ombudsman could view it as unfair that they are not accepting your payments.

With these people you have to stick to your guns. They don't give a toss if you starve for the next week. They cannot do anything horrible (although they threaten it) when you are clearly trying to get this sorted out properly through the DMP. "Legal proceedings" is a very vague threat meant to scare you. I think the worst that happened to us with "legal proceedings" was one creditor went for a CCJ almost immediately because we refused to send a payslip (!!) - even though we were paying the creditor through the DMP. When it happened we were scared stiff, but actually its no big deal, and meant the interest stopped and now they get less proportionally than the other creditors because the CCJ remains the same amount until its paid off.

If you ever get worried, give CCCS or Payplan a call, they can put your mind at rest.

typhoo_2

thanks all for your help! I'm going to stick to my guns and send one more letter to NatWest and then see what they do. They are so useless as it has been over 3 months since I first contacted them and got set up with CCCS!

thetateswife

Hello Everybody,

I need your advice! I'm at my whits end, the debt my partner and I have amassed seems huge, i'm keeping myself awake every night worrying and I've reached a decision. DMP! Now I spoke to Payplan last week, and they took all my details etc, they called me back for the initial assessment that night, and then rang me the next day to go through my options and explain what my DMP payment figure would be. It all seems affordable. (well a damn site more affordable than our current situation anyway). What happens next? I've a phone appointment tomorrow lunchtime, what does that entail? When can we get cracking with the DMP? Do i start cancelling dd's and sending token payments? I'm eager to get cracking with the plan, it will mean in approximately 4 years (with frozen interest), or 5 years (without frozen interest) we will be debt free (massive sigh of relief) accoriding to them!

I just want to start, we're skipping payments/ missing payments, adding to debt to pay off debt at the moment, and i need it to stop. We already have no social life, our shopping bill is £30 a week, and the plan payplan mentioned (subject to acceptance) actaully means I'll have more to live on than we do currently - which might mean i can get my shower and hoover fixed - as we've not been able to afford to do that since they broker last year! AND we'll actually being paying our debt back, not adding to it!

Any idea of timescales? at the moment, I'm dreading the phone ringing, the post arriving, EVERYTHING! I need to take control, I need to plan and I need to start. I've already sorted out new bank accounts (myslef, my partner and joint for bills). I can get my wages transferred with three days notice (the pleasures of workign for a small affluent company i suppose, OH not so simple, but when do I start. Does it takes months for a DMP to begin, i don't want to miss debt payments for no reason...

Any help at all would be greatly appreciated!!

All the best

thetateswife

Hopelessly_Hopeful

thetateswife wrote: »

Hello Everybody,

I need your advice! I'm at my whits end, the debt my partner and I have amassed seems huge, i'm keeping myself awake every night worrying and I've reached a decision. DMP! Now I spoke to Payplan last week, and they took all my details etc, they called me back for the initial assessment that night, and then rang me the next day to go through my options and explain what my DMP payment figure would be. It all seems affordable. (well a damn site more affordable than our current situation anyway). What happens next? I've a phone appointment tomorrow lunchtime, what does that entail? When can we get cracking with the DMP? Do i start cancelling dd's and sending token payments? I'm eager to get cracking with the plan, it will mean in approximately 4 years (with frozen interest), or 5 years (without frozen interest) we will be debt free (massive sigh of relief) accoriding to them!

I just want to start, we're skipping payments/ missing payments, adding to debt to pay off debt at the moment, and i need it to stop. We already have no social life, our shopping bill is £30 a week, and the plan payplan mentioned (subject to acceptance) actaully means I'll have more to live on than we do currently - which might mean i can get my shower and hoover fixed - as we've not been able to afford to do that since they broker last year! AND we'll actually being paying our debt back, not adding to it!

Any idea of timescales? at the moment, I'm dreading the phone ringing, the post arriving, EVERYTHING! I need to take control, I need to plan and I need to start. I've already sorted out new bank accounts (myslef, my partner and joint for bills). I can get my wages transferred with three days notice (the pleasures of workign for a small affluent company i suppose, OH not so simple, but when do I start. Does it takes months for a DMP to begin, i don't want to miss debt payments for no reason...

Any help at all would be greatly appreciated!!

All the best

thetateswife

Welcome to the fold.

There will be a solution for everything. The best advice I can give you is to go back to the beginning of the thread and previous version and start reading. That's the best way to see the journey people go on and that there is not a hard and fast solution but that there will be a range.

It may be rocky for the first three months, debt may even go up. But then it will get better. Try get your files set up and plan proper budgets. Keeping your fingers crossed doesn't work!

I guess from what you have said our wages to debt ratios are around the same. The first month my debt went up by 2.5% and look at my now nearly 2 years later I have almost paid half the debt off.

Payplan will guide you through the process. DMPs can be set up within days. If it were me I'd do token payments this month telling them you are going on DMP with payplan and start it proper in June. Your choice.

It will get better.

HHx

smcshane

Hi All

Well I've had a few days off work and finally had the opportunity to have a good look at my finances. As a result phoned CCCS and have advised then that I am going to be taking over the running over my DMP. With only three debts left I think I Can manage these quicker by snowballing. Determined to pay as minimal interest as possible especially as hellifax have continued to insist I wasn't in financial difficulty and charging full interest:eek:
I also gave Cabot a ring and advised them that I was continuing to pay my monthly payment as was in place with CCCS, when asked if I could increase my F&F explained I couldn't and this had now gone to people who were willing to negotiate rather than saying they wouldn't consider a F&Fs because the debt would be paid off in 18mnths so their loss.
I will be writing to CCCS to say a huge thank your as without their support since 2009 I would not be where I am now or have the confidence to deal with debt collection agencies or even collection depts within banks!
So I'm giving myself until the end of the year for it to be gone and a total of two years before it was going to end:T
As many people before have said use the help and support that is available and as soon as the head is out of the sand and being dealt with, life will start to feel so much better.
I will stick around on here and add any words when I can until I can get myself on the mse roll of honour:j

Sx

KirstyO

well after pay day on friday i was feeling really positive about this new financial month. I had my plan in my head and everything. And then I took my car for it's MOT. I ended the day £180 lighter, which was £120 more than i'd bargained for! So now my weekly budgets are shot. But I have made my agreed DMP and debt payments, and I'm just going to have to trim away at everything this month, and have a real necessity month. So....with over three weeks to go until payday...here's to May instead!