[text deleted by forum team]

davethefish

Hi all, new here and this is my first post and reason for signing up, this may be long winded but I'll get to the point.

Over the phone, the advice I was given was, "YOU NEED TO STOP PAYING ALL YOUR CREDITORS." He told me that they'd be calling all the time, sending letters and I should ignore them. He drilled it into me that I was getting this IVA and that if I had to speak to anyone, "[COMPANY NAME DELETED BY FORUM TEAM] are dealing with me."

Ultimately, the debt is all of my own making but the repercussions haven't been. I've had a roller coaster of a last few years and I'm much wiser for it, as I'm sure many of us are.

Quick summary; 2009 roughly £30,000 in debt, paid off through 2009-2010, some full settlement, some partial, no CCJs, some defaults and arrears but all paid by early 2010.

I'm not on the other side of it all though, as you'll know the Credit File's arms are far reaching and this, I'm blaming solely on [COMPANY NAME DELETED BY FORUM TEAM]...

I don't know why it happened like this but it did. My credit score was through the roof in early 2009, I had numerous loans, bank, car and credit cards and I was paying them all, monthly, I never missed a beat, but started to dip into my overdraft increasingly more as the months passed (about £100-£200 p/month). I know I over indulged...!

This worried me but I didn't do anything about it until a call from [COMPANY NAME DELETED BY FORUM TEAM]. It might have been the new girlfriend, I wanted to get straight for the future??? I can still vividly see myself on the phone to [COMPANY NAME DELETED BY FORUM TEAM] in my Mum's garden....

The guy went on about options, Bankruptcy, re-payment plans, IVAs. It scared me but looked like a way out. We seemed to skip over re-payment and BR and the way he sold the IVA to me, it seemed a no brainer.

He basically told me I'd pay them and they'd pay my creditors, he built it up and up and gave me all the info about timescales etc...

(Now please bear in mind that at this time, I'd never missed a payment so wasn't aware of the implications of doing so...)

Over the phone, the advice I was given was, "YOU NEED TO STOP PAYING ALL YOUR CREDITORS." He told me that they'd be calling all the time, sending letters and I should ignore them. He drilled it into me that I should not pay anything and that I was getting this IVA. If I had to speak to anyone, "[COMPANY NAME DELETED BY FORUM TEAM] are dealing with me." He even told me to spend an extra couple of hundred pounds or draw some cash on my credit cards, because they'd be written off! (Something for nothing, I naively took part).

And that was the beginning of months of arrears, defaults and irreparable damage to my credit file. After all that, I didn't even enter into the IVA because Virgin knocked it back (possibly quite luckily).

My long winded point being, the advice to stop paying everyone was the absolute single worst piece of advice I have ever been given and I'm deeply bitter about it.

Is there anything I can do about that? I know I have a few years waiting for my CF to clear up.

Kind regards,

Dave.