Struggling with debt? Ask a debt advisor a question

cpaterson3

Afternoon All,

I'm needing advice and help in regards to my debt. Any comments and advice would be greatly appreciated indeed.

I am currently around £20K in credit card debt and an overdraft. Since the beginning of the year, I've been doing cost cutting to try and reduce my overall monthly expenditure.

I have 3 credit cards, and wanting to consolidate it into 1 monthly payment instead of 3. Currently making minimum payments to them, and the balance is hardly going down. Ideally I would love to be to get a loan, pay off the cards and close those accounts down.

My credit rating is fair as I'm using above 75% of my available credit, and not tried to get a loan out as of yet. I think I might get rejected due to my credit rating.

Can anyone advise in what I can do?

Thanks,

UKSpartan

I have an agreement with Lloyds credit card dept to pay off a debt of £15000. I requested that they stop charging and adding interest which they accepted for a limited time and I have been making regular payments of the agreed amount for two years approx. Last December they began issuing all kinds of threats and a debt collection agency also began to send threatening and demanding letters and phone calls (all unanswered) claiming that the debt had been passed to them. As my bank has not informed me of this and keep accepting the payments, I have continued to pay them.
My questions are:

Can I send a standard letter to freeze all future interest charges?

Can I get back all interest charges from the time that they accepted my first reduced payment or perhaps, from the time of the initial default?

Should I request confirmation that my bank has passed this debt over to the debt collection agency that has been contacting me or carry on paying them until they notify me of being passed over to DCA?

Any other advice would be greatly appreciated as we are a family that got into debt because of health reasons and find this situation very confusing and worrying

Many thanks to all

Former_StepChange_Rachel

cpaterson3 wrote: »

Afternoon All,

I'm needing advice and help in regards to my debt. Any comments and advice would be greatly appreciated indeed.

I am currently around £20K in credit card debt and an overdraft. Since the beginning of the year, I've been doing cost cutting to try and reduce my overall monthly expenditure.

I have 3 credit cards, and wanting to consolidate it into 1 monthly payment instead of 3. Currently making minimum payments to them, and the balance is hardly going down. Ideally I would love to be to get a loan, pay off the cards and close those accounts down.

My credit rating is fair as I'm using above 75% of my available credit, and not tried to get a loan out as of yet. I think I might get rejected due to my credit rating.

Can anyone advise in what I can do?

Thanks,

Hi there,

It certainly sounds like you would benefit from some free debt advice.

When it comes to consolidation loans, we as a debt advice charity would not usually recommend that as a best option because many consolidation loans can have an interest rate or payment term that will cost you more in the long run. We also cannot signpost you to companies that offer consolidation loans. Instead, we encourage people in debt to look at their entire budget and figure out the best way they can go about making affordable repayments.

The debts you've talked about are what we call 'non priorities'. This means that they will always come secondary to your living costs such as food, rent, mortgage, council tax and utilities. If you find that these things are being compromised in order to pay your debts, that could be an indicator that you're living beyond your means and should look at all your options moving forward.

I've posted a link to an article we have on our MoneyAware blog that can explain further the pros and cons of consolidation loans: http://moneyaware.co.uk/2013/01/to-debt-consolidate-or-not-to-debt-consolidate/

I certainly appreciate your concerns in regards to your credit rating and why you would want to protect it. I would also stress however that your credit rating will improve once your debts are repaid. Your focus now should be working out a strategy to pay these debts off without compromising your quality of life.

We have an anonymous advice tool called Debt Remedy that can offer you a solution in just 20 minutes. It's completely free and confidential.

Hope this helps

Best regards

Rachel

United86

Hi my names Anthony abot 4 years ago I got in to a bit off a mess with credit cards,catalogs and contract phone because I got made redundant so I had to consoilde my debt for abot 3000 but now I'm look to get a morgage can you give me any advise on how to boost my credit rating please

Christian72

Hi, in the year 2000 I was struggling with debt a lot. I tried to get myself out of it the best I could. Now I'm getting calls from a company called Capquest saying I owe over £4,300 from 2 credit cards from the year 2000. I said that after 6 years all debt is obsolete. They say not when a county court judgement is in place. I never received no summons or court judgements but they disagree. There is no way I can afford to pay this back, I remember it is all interest from the cards. Where do I stand?

Kind regards.

StepChange_Private_Messages

United86 wrote: »

Hi my names Anthony abot 4 years ago I got in to a bit off a mess with credit cards,catalogs and contract phone because I got made redundant so I had to consoilde my debt for abot 3000 but now I'm look to get a morgage can you give me any advise on how to boost my credit rating please

Hi Anthony,

We're not trained to give specific mortgage advice - it would be down to your mortgage lender who would look at different factors when deciding to offer you a mortgage. You should get some independent financial advice for definite advice.

What I would say is that if you had any payment problems on your credit file they would stay on there as a record for 6 years so they could be viewed, but a lender would look at other factors like your more recent payment history and deposit amount. For advice on improving your credit file, MSE have an excellent article - if you haven't already looked at it here it is http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/loans/credit-rating-credit-score

Hope this helps,
Jess

System

UKSpartan wrote: »

I have an agreement with Lloyds credit card dept to pay off a debt of £15000. I requested that they stop charging and adding interest which they accepted for a limited time and I have been making regular payments of the agreed amount for two years approx. Last December they began issuing all kinds of threats and a debt collection agency also began to send threatening and demanding letters and phone calls (all unanswered) claiming that the debt had been passed to them. As my bank has not informed me of this and keep accepting the payments, I have continued to pay them.
My questions are:

Can I send a standard letter to freeze all future interest charges?

Can I get back all interest charges from the time that they accepted my first reduced payment or perhaps, from the time of the initial default?

Should I request confirmation that my bank has passed this debt over to the debt collection agency that has been contacting me or carry on paying them until they notify me of being passed over to DCA?

Any other advice would be greatly appreciated as we are a family that got into debt because of health reasons and find this situation very confusing and worrying

Many thanks to all

Hi and welcome to the forum.

It sounds like you would benefit from some free and impartial advice.

Once you break the initial agreement with a creditor, they can add interest and charges as per the credit agreement you initially signed. Sometimes creditors will suspend interest and charges for a short period (as in your case) but there is no guarantee that creditors will suspend them indefinitely.

The most important thing is that you’re paying what you can reasonably afford towards this debt and no more, we can assist you with this by helping you put a budget together.

Selling debts onto a collections company is standing part of the debt collection process, I’d recommend you speak to the bank to make sure this debt has been sold on.

I’d also recommend that you take 20 minutes and try our online debt advice tool Debt Remedy http://www.stepchange.org/msehelp – there could be potential solutions to your debt problem that you haven’t yet considered.

This article may also be worth reading regards interest and charges - http://moneyaware.co.uk/2012/06/can-i-get-my-creditors-to-freeze-interest-and-charges/

I hope this helps.

Kind regards,

Mat

System

Christian72 wrote: »

Hi, in the year 2000 I was struggling with debt a lot. I tried to get myself out of it the best I could. Now I'm getting calls from a company called Capquest saying I owe over £4,300 from 2 credit cards from the year 2000. I said that after 6 years all debt is obsolete. They say not when a county court judgement is in place. I never received no summons or court judgements but they disagree. There is no way I can afford to pay this back, I remember it is all interest from the cards. Where do I stand?

Kind regards.

Hi Christian72,

The County Court Judgement (CCJ) would need to have been registered within 6 years of you admitting the debt in writing or from the last payment you made. My advice would be to write to Capquest asking them to send a record of you having admitted the debt in writing or of the last payment made.

***It's very important that you put "without prejudice" at the top of the letter - it's a legal term - the letter cannot then be used as a record of you admitting you have to pay the debt. I also suggest you send the letter recorded delivery from the Post Office.***

If the debt is not Statue Barred - ie there was a CCJ registered within 6 years of the last payment you made - you should get an N245 and submit it to your local county court http://hmctscourtfinder.justice.gov.uk/HMCTS/GetForm.do?court_forms_id=486

The county court would then send you a budget to give you the opportunity to make an offer towards the debt in installments you can afford.

I don't advise that you make any payment to Capquest until you are sure the debt is enforceable. If it then is we can offer free debt advice to help you manage the debt.

We offer a confidential online debt advice tool called Debt Remedy http://www.stepchange.org/msehelp

You could put in your budget details and it would advise on the best way to deal with your debts. Or you could call our Helpline to speak to a debt advisor http://www.stepchange.org/Contactus.aspx

I hope this helps,
Jess

sharp82

Hoping for a little advice...

My current unsecured debt is just under £8k.

Income = £1589
Expenditure (ex unsecured debt) = £1568

3 credit cards, 2 payday loans and a catalogue make up my debt.

Have been on the stepchange site, and they have suggested that I apply for a DRO. I have two worries with this.

1. Future employers may check my credit file, and I get rejected for jobs. Do many employers check this? I currently work in IT, and am unlikely to apply for a job in a financial institution?

2. My car. At face value, my car is probably worth £3k. However, its pretty knackered due to poor maintenance, and has a couple of large dents which require panels to be replaced as oppose to being beaten out. I'd be lucky to get £1000 for it on the market. How/who decides on how much your car is worth? I dont want to pay the £90 application fee, to only be rejected because of my car

lukelove

trying to find new ways to make a living is hard got to pay of this debt anyone have bright ideas? tried writing my own book and its published on kindle but no ones bought it yet lol feel free to check it out . its called , not an office romance , just sex!!! search for it on amazon