Bank, Credit Card & Debt Management Charges Led to Bancruptcy

eyeswideshut_3

Hi everyone,

I am a newbie on the forum as I am only now emotionally strong enough to talk about my bankruptcy.... nearly 4 years since being discharged! I only wish that I had discovered it when I was struggling with my mounting debts 6/7 years ago...

I was going through all my old files and realised that the bank charges, credit card charges led to my debts doubling and then I stupidly agreed a debt management plan with Gregory Pennington and then it all really started to go wrong. They told me to ignore all communication from my creditors and they would handle eveything - for a bury my head in the sand person like me this was just what I wanted to hear! However, it took over 3 months to get some of my creditors to agree to the plan and in that time the majority of them carried on charging interest, late payment fees and I also incurred some default notices.

All of the above meant that when I was forced to resign from my well paid job in London to return back home to Devon, I couldn't find a job that paid well enough to maintain the debts and my only option (I felt at the time) was bankrupty. Now when I look back, my original debt was approx 10k - but added to that all the fees and charges I ended up being in debt for over 20k!!!

The bottom line is that whilst I accept the original debt of 10k was of my own making, the rest was purely down to excessive bank charges (£30+ a day) and debt management charges. Do I have any comeback, claims? If so, is there anyone/company out there that can take this on collectively or is it up to me to contact each creditor individually to put forward my claim that the charges and subsequent bancruptcy has led to significant financial hardship for me and also impacted on my health?

Any advice on whether I have a claim and how to go about it would be fantastic... thanks

sniggings

A lawyer will always take on a case if you pay him enough but that doesn't mean the case is winnable.

My advice will be to try and let it go, your only recourse is to sue the debt management comany, which would be extremly expensive and have little chance of winning, you would need paper work of them giving you wrong advice etc etc which I doubt you have and even if you do that still leaves the expense!

For you to have gone to a DMC you were admitting you had problems, can you not just look at it that even for £10K going BR was a new start and was what you needed.

Have you cleaned up your credit report? there is a sticky at the top of the page giving details, well worth doing.

Being BR is not all bad, getting credit again is possible, some even get mortgages.

alastairq

Hi..............and welcome!

What you describe fits the bill with most of us on here, I suspect?

And, most on other forums too?

The debts, obviously, aren't the sums borrowed, but the sums agreed to be repaid, at the times stated.

Unless penalties were applied which were not outlined in the T&Cs, I suspect any claim against creditors will fail.

As sniggins states, you yourself sought out the DMC, no the other way around.

You also admit such action suited you, and your frame of mind at the time?

It must be presumed you took impartial debt advice prior to petitioning for BR? {CAB, National Debtline, etc?}

Therefore it could be presumed you understood the implications of BR...and were in fact insolvent at the time?


What sort of outcome would you be expecting to occur, should a suit be pursued?


DMP's do have to be agreed......if there is a failure to agree, then late payment charges, etc , can still be added to a debt.

I suspect you will find that any creditor's defence may well centre around the fact that you yourself decided to take the courses of action you did......they were not imposed upon you by another.