The best and worst creditors, your experiance

owen_money

Hi,
I just wanted to jot down my experiances I have had with my creditors, and I would be more than happy to hear yours

I started a DMP 2004, owing about £50,000

MBNA CC 2 accounts, £22,000 in total. They accepted my offer, stopped interest, refunded charges, plodded along ok for 7-ish years. Made a F&F in 2012, accepted, accounts now closed. Never had any problems with them, always helpful.

Marbles CC (HFC) 1 account, £9,000. Really bizzare. Made an offer but they phoned me and said if I upped it by £5 per month (from £32) they would write off £4,500 and give me a 0% loan for 10 years. I agreed all paperwork came through at 0% over 10 years, old account closed and has now dropped off credit report. I have increased the payments over the years and will be paid off this month (yay). Never any problems with them. Dont know why they made that offer, but was greatful for it. Anyone else had similar?


HSBC Loan, £3,000. Worst of the lot, really horrible considering I had a current account with them for 22 years. They would only agree to my payments if I took out a managed loan. I was naive in those days and agreed. Interest rate was 14% apr so not too bad, paid off 2008. I still hate them the most as they still wanted to make more money from a person in debt. Felt a bit happier as I reclamed bank charges :j (£500)

Barclaycard. £7,000. Fine to start with, accepted my offer, froze interest. Then in about 2009 they decided to start interest again, albeit at 12% apr. No matter how many letter I send never any replies. Made them a F&F a couple of times, didnt answer on the first and on the second said 'they didn't do that sort of thing, but I could give them a lump sum to reduce interest being paid'. Oh very generous, but paid off MBNA instead. Will be paid off November this year. I hate Barclaycard almost the most cos they have 'dont give a sh*t' attitude

Halifax CC. £8,000. Difficult to start with, wouldn't accept my offer kept adding charges and interest. Finally passed to their in house debt collect, Blair Oliver, Scott (BOS) in 2006 who did accept my offer, took off interest and charges previuoisly added and froze interest. Its called a temporary agreement but has been in place since 2006 and every few month I have to send them a SOA and sometime I can afford to increase payments, sometimes not, but they have always accepted. Account will be paid off May 2013


........... then debt free!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And what will I do first.....a holiday abroad, the first since 2003!

If you want to add you experiances it would be great and maybe help people who are just beginning to work towards their DFD so they know what to expect. I know some people have had much worse experiances than I have had with the above, so maybe it would be good to see a balanced view.

Owen_Money (but not for much longer)

tony_ack

Excellent thread, I'm just starting on the journey, and it would be interesting to see what people's experiences with my creditors are like.

Worrying thing is I have to deal with Barclaycard and Barclays (though luckily not HSBC!)

I'll try to add my experiences as I get the offers through.

moohound

Thank for sharing your experiences, i have accounts with some of those mentioned and it's helpful to have some idea of what they might say.
The bulk of my debt is with Sainsburys Bank and Lloyds TSB I would be interested in hearing anyone's experiences with them.

My barclaycard debt is my smallest at £475 so hopefully won't have to deal with them for long, if I can get some extra work, or sell some stuff, to make a F and F.

I have sent off the authority to act forms and I am just waiting to get my documents for my basic account.

Time_to_face_the_music

Hi owen_money :wave:

Great name and great thread :T

Only almost 5 months into our DMP but our good experiences/creditors are very similar to yours.

MBNA super from the start. Very friendly, very helpful and while they didn't freeze interest, they did drop it to a very low amount immediately.

HFC ex Marbles. Froze interest immediately, no problems at all so far.

Opus. Great. Reduced interest significantly and never heard from them once.

HSBC Bank of Scotland. Caused lots of problems at first, claiming they hadn't heard anything from CCCS, would accept the DMP, wanted a SOA from us not CCCS, phone calls and letters galore for 6 weeks. Then it all stopped and they froze interest and have been fine since.

Now the ones we hate :mad:

NatWest. OD: Refused DMP due to their share of the payment not being fair, which is a load of rubbish. Refuse to stop interest. Piled on interest and charges. Write nonsensical letters at least once a week. Currently are in mid complaint to the FOS. NatWest CC: Stopped interest but still write stupid letters!

Lloyds TSB. OD: Piled on interest and charges. Ignored all of our letters and never acknowledged the DMP. FOS asked them to stop interest and they did plus refunded 2 months but they made it clear it was a one year review only. Sounds ok but ..... they had stopped interest on a CC and they immediately restarted that once they had stopped on the OD.

M&S. Oh I hate M&S with a vengeance, I have even started a one woman no more M&S knickers protest! Still charging full interest on CC and a loan. Never acknowledged DMP. Continually send me letters asking me to call them but provide the wrong phone numbers. Completely ignore all communication by post. Are currently ignoring our FOS complaint :mad:

Squirrel29

On DMP, creditors are Co-operative (they are owed the most), Nationwide x2 (OD & CC), Santander, m&s. All froze interest and accepted payment except for Nationwide who got a CCJ on CC but have accepted a 25% settlement on OD!

moohound

Am fretting a bit now! Re comments on lLloyds TSB.

I owe them

Amex cc 5550
OD 1 1400
OD2 1600
Loan 2440 (was £8500 over 7 years originally)

Also loan with blackhorse for £1700

Are they always uncooperative?

Sparklyfairy

MBNA have by far been my WORST creditor! They quietly accepted my DMP payments, then wham, ccj & charging order on a £10k cc..beware of them!

Also Lloyds have been very frustrating...

My Tesco & Post Office cards have been super helpful & pleasant so far..

Sparklyfairy

moohound wrote: »

Are they always uncooperative?

Pretty much! They ignored all my letters asking for interest to be stopped & never accepted my dmp. My oh & I had 2 sole accounts, 1 joint & 2 credit cards & they were horribly unorganised & would pass from dca to dca which was just as bad as dealing with them solely. Eventually they stopped interest & begrudgingly accepted my dmp payments, but it does take time..:)

moohound

It looks like a mixed bag of experiences then, but TSB seem uniformly unhelpful, at least I can brace myself for worst.:(

I wonder if they do it on purpose, so you get fed up and pay them off first , to get them off your backs, just a thought.

tony_ack

First letter back today from MBNA - they accepted my payment plan, dropped interest (though not as much as I'd have liked) and froze charges so not a bad start.

Five to go, including Halifax (loan and cc), Barclays and Barclaycard!

Not really fussed how helpful they are, the FACT is that I can only afford so much, and I'm not going to favour any one creditor over another, no matter how hard they push.

thechippy

Lloyds are the worst - end of.

With debt related issues, they are the biggest cretins on the planet to deal with.

Why did they nearly go bust? - I wonder.........:rotfl: