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A right royal mess

Hey all,

Since you all seem such a thoroughly knowledgable bunch I thought I'd post here. I have a friend (and for once that isn't an excuse!) who's in a right financial mess and as I am myself pretty inexperienced when it comes to these matters I thought I'd ask here for any advice.

The long story short is that her outgoings are bigger than her ingoings; her debt is mounting up and she can't pay it off. She's on benefits, and due to medical issues is unable to hold down a job right at the moment - most of the time she can barely afford to feed herself and pay off half of her bills every month.

I think the biggest problem is that she's in several contracts she entered into before her personal issues arose; a phone contract and Virgin Media's TV-Internet package. She regularly misses payments on both of these, and as such the bills and late-payment charges are mounting up - and both services have been cut off. She's contacted the organisations responsible and explained her situation, but it would seem the best they can offer by way of cancellation is for her to pay off all her contract in one huge sum - needless to say, that's totally impossible, given her current situation.

As mentioned previously, she does have medical issues and she is on benefits - I guess to this extent you could say she's a 'vulnerable' person. To that end, would there be any way for allowances to be made for her to cancel her contracts early? Something at the back of mind says there may be, but as I say I'm pretty naive when it comes to fiscal matters.

Any advice or approach that may help her would be much appreciated. While we know the situation cannot continue like this, we're both at a bit of a loss as to what to do.

Many thanks.

Comments

  • Hi,

    Sorry to hear your friend is struggling. I haven't got much experience of this but didn't want to read and run. I would suggest that she rings up CCCS (debt charity) for some advice. I'm sure more people will be along soon to help out.
    A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. Started 15/03/2011.
    CC1 -
    [STRIKE]6380[/STRIKE] 5800 CC2 - [STRIKE]2673[/STRIKE] 2238 Loan - [STRIKE]12172[/STRIKE] 10731 Total - [STRIKE]21225[/STRIKE] 18769 11.5% (£2456) paid :T

  • fatbelly
    fatbelly Posts: 23,237 Forumite
    Part of the Furniture 10,000 Posts Name Dropper Cashback Cashier
    When the debts are crystallised (are those the only two?) get her to come on here, maybe with your help, and post a statement of affairs.

    Then we can look at the options.

    In the meantime you (plural) should do a benefit check and make sure that her benefits are going into a bank account that is unconnected to her debts
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