Who do I go with?

antonic

I recommend Payplan,

see my sig for details why ..

tealady

Hi
Rember the saying "The best things in life are free". Well thats true on here
The advice is free
The support is free
And the laughs are free
So stick with us and your FREE debt free service (see theres that wonderful word again)
We can't promise it will be easy
We can't deal with your creditors for you.
What we can do (and you will get that in spades) is give support, advice, a shoulder to cry on and someone to cheer your sucesses.
Stick with us, it'll be worth it.

Pippin12

All the previous posters have given you great advice. Fee charging companies are a TOTAL ripoff. Payplan and CCCS do exactly the same for free. They will contact your creditors for you and you won't have to phone them yourself. Good luck!

fatbelly

Of course Payplan are not free if they set up an IVA as Insolvency Practitioner.

Anyone know what they would charge within a £150 x 60 month IVA?

I'm guessing 4-5k.

This is important to find out, as you may end up repaying over 8.5k. Suppose at the creditors meeting, they believe you can afford say £230 per month rather than the £150 Payplan offered, and after negotiation they settled at £190 x 60. Payplan would still take say £4500, creditors would get around 80 p in the £ and you would end up paying £11400. Maybe more if you get bonuses or a rise over the next 5 years. You could end up repaying all the £8500 plus Payplan's £4500.

And this is why most advisers (i.e. those with no vested interest in making money from you) do not recommend IVAs for debts under 15-20k, and particularly when there is no business or property to protect.

HeadInTheSand

This thread has pretty much solved my problems now.

LBM - 20th August 2012 (total debt £4900)
Signed up on MSE.com - 28th August 2012!
Spoke to Payplan (after reading this thread) - 29th August 2012!
Spoke to my DMP advisor - 30th August 2012!
DFD - August 2015! @ £85 per month!

Roll on August 2015!

THANKS FOR THE ADVICE GUYS!

ChrisR36

Ok, thanks to everybody's advice here, I've gone ahead with Payplan and cancelled Harrington Brooks within my 14 day cooling off period. They didn't make it easy for me, sounding like they'd taken it as a personal insult that I'd decided to go elsewhere. When I enquired about a refund on the initial fee that I paid them, they told me they would 'look into it next week', so I'll be surprised if I get that back, so much for helping me out of debt.

I'm now getting a bit overwhelmed with everything and not sure how to proceed. I've opened up a new bank account with Nat West, and left my old Barclays account with the overdraft maxed out at £1250. Trouble is, I now have direct debits approaching (next one due on Sunday) I don't want to deposit money into my Barclays account to cover the direct debits, because I suspect that Barclays will simply take that money for themselves.

I'm currently in the process of transferring all direct debits to my new NatWest account, but this takes time. In the meantime, my only option seems to be to pay the direct debits manually over the phone, but I don't have my new debit card yet to be able to do this. I don't know what to do, and any advice on how to handle this would be much appreciated.

bargainbetty

Cancel all your direct debits apart from rent.

Contact each of your creditors and explain that you are in financial difficulties and are setting up a DMP with Payplan. (Do this in writing). Send them each a postal order for £1 as a token payment, and advise them of the DMP reference number you will have from Payplan.

If you let the DD's go through, you will get bounces anyway, and run up rejection fees. You're going to have missed payment markers, so avoid the problem by cancelling them ahead of time.

Once the DMP is in place, you can reset what ever debits you need.

Good luck x

ChrisR36

Thank you for the advice. Just one thing, if I cancel all of my direct debits now, will that disturb the process of transferring them over to my new account with NatWest. I'm talking about mobile phone, car insurance, and necessary stuff, not the stuff that Payplan is taking care of.

Standingtall

I rang most of providers and they sent out new direct debit forms to me to complete. the local council for instance, gave me my free month that month instead of the February one. You will probably not have more than half a dozen direct debits to transfer anyway ( as most are likely those creditors that are included in your DMP), so it should not be that time consuming. Others will probably let you miss this month and spread the missing payment between the following months. I know it is a nuisance but once done you probably won't need to change bank accounts again for years.

Payplan is very good, I have been in a DMP with them for a year now. Once you are set up they give you access to Payplan Plus which has lots of information plus template letters you can send to your creditors. Although Payplan asks the creditors contuously to stop charging interest etc, this is still sometimes added but usually a quick letter from yourself gets them to stop. Out of my 7 creditors I have had to do this only twice.

Good luck

RAS

Chris

Are you goign for a DMP or an IVA?

Do you understand that an insolvency arrangement is listed on the Insolvency Register and that you have to declare that you have had one for the rest of your life if you are asked?

This may affect mortgages and renting as well as unsecured credit. What fees are Payplan asking for the IVA?