Struggling with debt? Ask a debt advisor a question

humphrd

Lucky_Clover wrote: »

Just starting my DMP with Step Change and sent off the forms -- but have heard nothing in reply a week later.

I decided to phone by ringing the free to mobiles 0800 number but was told I had to go through the 08442641919 number to speak to the correct advisor. Well it did not take long for the music that I listened to whilst waiting on that line to gobble up my £10 phone credit

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and so now I am without use of my mobile :-(

Will it always cost an arm and a leg for me to call Step Change when I need to speak to my advisor?? I do not have a landline phone. I still do not know whether you have received my DMP a week later. And I have no money for phone credit at present to have any of my other personal questions answered.

Feeling stuck :-(

Lucky Clover - it is frustrating isn't it - you are trying to get out of debt and ironically have to phone a premium rate number. I fortunately still had a landline I could call from but not when it was convenient to me. Sure someone from StepChange will be along shortly, have to say they have been great for me so far but please give us a landline number that we can call !!

pinklaurap

Hi i hope someone can help.

I brought a 1 bed apartment with my partner about 6 years ago we since had a child and separated he left the home with his nae still on the mortgage.
since then the property has dropped in value an is now in ngative equity. i lost my job of 8 year an slowly but surly slipped into debt i have since started on the path to recovery an got an iva with payplan. i have now met a new partner an we want a place where we all can live together im currently sleeping in the living room on an air bed as little one has the bed room . I don't even know where to start with sorting all this out my ex is pushing for his name off the mortgage also adding stress May i also add he hasty paved a penny to the house for 2 1/2 years.

I hope someone can help me with this!!!

StepChange_James

Lucky_Clover wrote: »

Just starting my DMP with Step Change and sent off the forms -- but have heard nothing in reply a week later.

I decided to phone by ringing the free to mobiles 0800 number but was told I had to go through the 08442641919 number to speak to the correct advisor. Well it did not take long for the music that I listened to whilst waiting on that line to gobble up my £10 phone credit

---

and so now I am without use of my mobile :-(

Will it always cost an arm and a leg for me to call Step Change when I need to speak to my advisor?? I do not have a landline phone. I still do not know whether you have received my DMP a week later. And I have no money for phone credit at present to have any of my other personal questions answered.

Feeling stuck :-(

Hello,

We use a freephone number for our helpline which first time callers contact us on. The other departments within our charity tend to us 0844 numbers. Using this type of number means we’ve been able to reduce the cost of calling us from a BT Landline to an absolute minimum of 1p per minute (compated to 0845 numbers).

Unfortunately we can’t influence the cost of calls made using a mobile telephone. If you can't get access to a landline phone it might be worth considering using our website to send an email: http://www.stepchange.org/Contactus/Sendusanemail.aspx.

Please send a private message to StepChange Private Messages with your details if you'd like me to look into this further for you.

Kind regards

James

StepChange_James

scotschick wrote: »

Hi,

Hope you can help. I am currently trying to face up to my debts...and have been looking over lots of comments on the forums to understand what steps I can take.

I have over 25k of credit card debt and although I am making my payments, I am only making minimum payments so the money is not reducing.:(

I was wondering that if I approach the card companies, and explain my difficulties, I am looking to see if they would freeze my interest for a period of time.

My questions are:

Can I ask for it to be set for a fixed period of time, or would they tell me how long they may be willing to?
I can still maintain my existing payments. Should I assume they will view this as a positive?
Does asking them to freeze interest show as a default on my credit for the next 6 years?

Hope these questions are logical.

I had considered looking to use equity in my house to meet some of the debt, but my thinking is that that there is a low option of this, since there is so much focus on the Loan To Value element. My flat is worth 120,00 and I owe 90,000 on the mortgage, but am I right in this thinking?

Would really appreciate some informed advice. I am considering a DMP but want to try to deal with this myself first.

So desperate to get control of this situation.!!!!:o:o

Thanks:)

Hello,

Your questions sound completely logical to me. Hopefully we can help you get back on top of things.

Can I ask for it to be set for a fixed period of time, or would they tell me how long they may be willing to? If your creditors are willing to stop interest and charges they'll tell you how long they'll do this for. Usually when the time runs out there's a chance to review and extend the agreement though.

I can still maintain my existing payments. Should I assume they will view this as a positive? Obviously it's great if you can afford to keep up with your full payments but in terms of getting the interest stopped it probably won't help your chances.

Creditors are often willing to suspend interest if they think that a person is struggling with their debts. The measurement they'll usually use for this is whether you can afford the minimum payments. So they may not see you as having a problem (though I completely understand that things are nowhere near that clean cut in the real world).

I'd suggest using our online advice tool, Debt Remedy (http://www.stepchange.org/msehelp) to plan out a detailed income and expenditure budget and seeing what advice it offers you.

It may well be that when you actually work it out that there isn't enough money to pay everything in full. Which while not great, this would give you an increased chance of being able to agree reduced payments and getting interest and charges stopped.

Does asking them to freeze interest show as a default on my credit for the next 6 years?

It's not the stopping of interest that leads to your credit rating being affected, but if you're making reduced payments then it's going to show on your credit history and there's a reasonable chance of a default being registered onto your file as well and these do stay on there for six years.

As for loan to value ratios, it's fair to say that lenders are less inclined to offer mortgages if you've not got loads of equity. A mortgage broker should be able to tell you more about the specifics of the current mortgage market.

We generally advise against taking out extra borrowing on properties to clear unsecured debts though, as they put properties at greater risk.

Apologies for the length of my reply but hopefully I've covered everything there.

Cheers

James

StepChange_James

pinklaurap wrote: »

Hi i hope someone can help.

I brought a 1 bed apartment with my partner about 6 years ago we since had a child and separated he left the home with his nae still on the mortgage.
since then the property has dropped in value an is now in ngative equity. i lost my job of 8 year an slowly but surly slipped into debt i have since started on the path to recovery an got an iva with payplan. i have now met a new partner an we want a place where we all can live together im currently sleeping in the living room on an air bed as little one has the bed room . I don't even know where to start with sorting all this out my ex is pushing for his name off the mortgage also adding stress May i also add he hasty paved a penny to the house for 2 1/2 years.

I hope someone can help me with this!!!

Hello,

Based on speaking to people in similar circumstances, I'd be very surprised if the mortgage company allowed your ex to take his name off the mortgage as it would mean they'd have one less person to chase for payments.

I'd suggest speaking to your IVA provider and explaining the circumstances. If you're looking to move house then it's likely to have an knock on effect on your IVA and they'll be able to tell you what your options are.

Kind regards

James

chiefsinger

Hi there, I hope I'm posting in the right place.
I had 2 credit cards which got out of control a few years ago, both of which had become Santander. As I couldn't afford the min payments, I ended up with an agreement to pay two lots of £20 per month.
I have just received a letter from Santander stating that one of the debts is being sold to Arrow Global Ltd, which has got me quite worried. Are they likely to bill me for the entire amount and then "fine me" when I can't pay, causing the debt to spiral out of control? I can't find out what their modus operandi is. Any advice will be gratefully received.
Thanks, Ollie

mum2one

chiefsinger wrote: »

Hi there, I hope I'm posting in the right place.
I had 2 credit cards which got out of control a few years ago, both of which had become Santander. As I couldn't afford the min payments, I ended up with an agreement to pay two lots of £20 per month.
I have just received a letter from Santander stating that one of the debts is being sold to Arrow Global Ltd, which has got me quite worried. Are they likely to bill me for the entire amount and then "fine me" when I can't pay, causing the debt to spiral out of control? I can't find out what their modus operandi is. Any advice will be gratefully received.
Thanks, Ollie

It could be their in house collectors - basically your recieve a letter saying that you owe xxx and please contact them, it happened to me previous (before I got help from stepchange) at the time rang them, went through an income and expenditure, explained that I had an agreement for £xx per month, not defaulted on the agreement, and they may ask for more money, but if you can only afford £20 per month tell them that. The may say yes, we will review in 3, 6, 9, 12 months.

If you do get worried or any hassle, please contact stepchange, they are so helpful xx

StepChange_James

chiefsinger wrote: »

Hi there, I hope I'm posting in the right place.
I had 2 credit cards which got out of control a few years ago, both of which had become Santander. As I couldn't afford the min payments, I ended up with an agreement to pay two lots of £20 per month.
I have just received a letter from Santander stating that one of the debts is being sold to Arrow Global Ltd, which has got me quite worried. Are they likely to bill me for the entire amount and then "fine me" when I can't pay, causing the debt to spiral out of control? I can't find out what their modus operandi is. Any advice will be gratefully received.
Thanks, Ollie

Hi Ollie,

As you can see from mum2one's post, it's quite common that debts get passed on to debt collection companies. They don't have any more power to collect the debts, so you can treat them just the same as you have Santander.

They might ask you to repay the whole debt in one go. But that's all they are doing: asking. If you've not got it then they can't have it. While debt collectors do sometimes put charges on debts we tend to find that they are less likely to do this than the original companies.

I can't see any reason why you shouldn't be able to set up a realistic monthly payment arrangement like you've had with Santander.

Before getting in touch I'd suggest using our online advice tool, Detb Remedy (http://www.stepchange.org/msehelp). It'll help you put together a personal budget and provide you with an action plan to move forward with - these should help you when you come to deal with the debt collectors.

Kind regards

James

chiefsinger

StepChange_James wrote: »

Hi Ollie,

As you can see from mum2one's post, it's quite common that debts get passed on to debt collection companies. They don't have any more power to collect the debts, so you can treat them just the same as you have Santander.

They might ask you to repay the whole debt in one go. But that's all they are doing: asking. If you've not got it then they can't have it. While debt collectors do sometimes put charges on debts we tend to find that they are less likely to do this than the original companies.

I can't see any reason why you shouldn't be able to set up a realistic monthly payment arrangement like you've had with Santander.

Before getting in touch I'd suggest using our online advice tool, Detb Remedy. It'll help you put together a personal budget and provide you with an action plan to move forward with - these should help you when you come to deal with the debt collectors.

Kind regards

James

Thank you to James and mum2one's replies, which have put my mind to rest to some extent. I guess my main worry was (and remains) what do Arrow get out of buying the debt? Could it be they've bought it at say 25% of the total, and so are looking at the "long game"?
I'll certainly look at stepchange...
One last question: looking a various forums, it would seem the done thing is to send a CCA request to them once I've heard from them - is this correct?
Thank you all again,
Ollie

mum2one

chiefsinger wrote: »

Thank you to James and mum2one's replies, which have put my mind to rest to some extent. I guess my main worry was (and remains) what do Arrow get out of buying the debt? Could it be they've bought it at say 25% of the total, and so are looking at the "long game"?
I'll certainly look at stepchange...
One last question: looking a various forums, it would seem the done thing is to send a CCA request to them once I've heard from them - is this correct?
Thank you all again,
Ollie

Thank you, glad I could put a bit of your mind at rest, for now sit tight and see what happens, definatly look at the budget planner James as suggested, as this will put everything into black and white and give you change to assess everything,

This is just my thoughts (I may be wrong!!), as for this CCA request, I think that it is not appliable in this case, as for now you have been paying Person A in building one, - your debt has gone to person B in building two, - at the moment as you have had an arrangement in place then you have said yes there is a debt, this CCA request is if someone came out of the woodwork and said oh by the way you owe me 6k from 2007 - then you would want the proof.

I wouldn't think about a final settlement at the mo, just wait and see what happens your get a lot of support from stepchange and the board. Your be fine xx