Creditor tells me I should DECREASE my monthly payments...

SeduLOUs

Wouldn't you be better off paying the minimums that keeps the interest at bay and then saving the extra cash? Keep at it until you have enough in savings to clear the remaining balances...

J_Tizzle

SeduLOUs wrote: »

Wouldn't you be better off paying the minimums that keeps the interest at bay and then saving the extra cash? Keep at it until you have enough in savings to clear the remaining balances...

As I mentioned previously CCCS won't allow me to pay less than I can actually afford. Presumably the only way of doing that would be doing a self-managed DMP which, as I said, I will think about should LTSB refuse to rethink their stance.

Ridiculous, really, that they would then end up receiving less money each month from me even though I am willing to give them more...

9780ninjalt

OMG Snap...We're going through this now. Like you we're on a DMP with CCCS and to begin as we were over our limit and making lower payments Lloydstsb froze interest and everything was fine. Then in August they declined the payments from the CCCS telling them the account was in credit! CCCS wrote to us to confirm but unfortunatley my cousin had give us a free week in her caravan so we were away and the payment to Lloyds was stopped. So consequently Lloydstsb didn't receive any payment and the CCCS redistributed the payments to other people so they received more. We contacted CCCS and LLoyds on our return CCCS said no problem they'd send the paperwork out again and Lloyds said fine tell them to send paperwork. Which they did and again we received a letter off CCCS saying Lloyds refused because the acccount was in credit and a letter off Lloyds saying WE'D broken the agreement by not paying in August!!!

A phonecall to Lloyds resulted in them asking us to pay them the money then, and they couldn't seem to understand that no we didn't have the money any more because we pay it to CCCS through our DMP and they gave it to our other creditors because Lloyds told them the account was in credit. He finally twigged at what I was getting at and then said the same to me as he did to you. 'Well Mrs Thomas because the proposed payments from CCCS are MORE than the required minimum payment on your account this means in our eyes you ARE NOT in financial difficulty and therefore interest and charges as you didn't pay last month (again your fault) will be added to your account at the normal rate. If you're telling me your situation hasn't changed then I suggest you tell the CCCS to reduce your payments and then we'll accept them or they can continue paying X amount but we'll just accept it as a normal payment. Get them to send paperwork.

Phonecall to CCCS who said they were having several similar problems with LLoyds account for other people and it's ludicrous to pay less when the whole point is to clear your debt ASAP but they would send the paperwork and send payments.

Hey ho letter yesterday from them saying Lloyds had Again rejected the payments because we are in Credit (which seen as we've missed a payment I don't see how?) CCCS however have assured me that payment will still be sent. Phew

BUT..........because the payments to the other creditors increased last month we're now being bombarded with phonecalls from GE Money (who incidently have never frozen interest!) saying out situation must've changed because our payments increased!!!

I'm guessing the others will start calling after this months payment returns to normal?

Lloyds are a nightmare and just keep you going round in circles

x

J_Tizzle

9780ninjalt wrote: »

Thanks for your input

Can I just check something: are you saying that CCCS decreased the amount you were paying to LTSB, thereby keeping the interest rate very low?

I only ask as CCCS refused to do that when I suggested it.

Thanks.

J_Tizzle

Just thought I would post an update in case it helps anyone else in a similar position.

After sending the same complaint letter THREE times to LTSB, only for them to claim none of them had been received (I used three different addresses; each given to me by the telephone operator), I called up LTSB yesterday.

They informed me that, having received my yearly updated budget from CCCS (who, incidentally, have changed their name to Step Change, or something...), they had frozen interest and charges on the account. I am waiting for the written confirmation of this on my statement though, as interest has never previously been frozen.

I also managed to get LTSB to refund most of the 25% interest they had been charging for the previous two months as well (they reduced the amount to the previous rate of about 3%), so it was a pretty successful 'phone call really!

Taliesin71

@9780ninjalt - Get copies of the letters from CCCS, if they've refused payment...

1> They have broken the agreement, not you.
2> They can't justify any further affect to your credit record.
3> They are liable for any financial implications caused by their erroneous statement.

Dependent on what the letters to CCCS actually say, IMO they're acknowledging not only that the debt is cleared but that they owe you a refund.

Of course this all depends on the actual details and how much you're willing to blag.