DMP & Mutual Support Thread - Part 9

Hopelessly_Hopeful

AnnM48 wrote: »

Hi All,
Just a bit of an update from me....
After advice from Hopelessly Hopeful back on the 7/10, I finally got my butt into gear and got around to sending a letter to Halifax about my two overdrafts, for £650 and £2000. I used the letter template supplied by TTFTM, and just added in some of my own personal experiences of numerous telephone calls to try and address the interest and charges I was getting. I was just getting nowhere with those calls, passed from one department to the next while my charges kept mounting. Anyway, posted the letter on the 17/10, signed for first class, I was able to see it had been delivered early on the 21/10. I had a voicemail around 5pm on the 21/10 asking me to call the customer services department regarding my complaint.

I returned the call today...feeling a little nervous... and got a lovely, very helpful girl on the line. She acknowledged my letter and apologised for the service I had received...she then gave me the option of keeping my account and repaying within 6 months, or just closing it now, removing the overdraft and transferring to the 'recovery' department. I obviously opted for the second option as this is what I had wanted from the start. All fees and interest will now be frozen and she refunded me the total of £311.50 of charges across both my accounts, which brings my overdrafts back within the limits and are now actually reducing!! Hooray!!:j
For the icing on the cake, she is also sending me a cheque of £100, (so that I can decide how to use it,) as an 'apology' for the service given and the fact that I had to send a letter!

I am so pleased that I had actually made the effort and followed the advice of more experienced 'DMP'ers' on this forum!! The £100 will now pay for my new shock absorbers (which I had been panicking about paying for) for my car to hopefully get it through the MOT at the end of this month!!

So thanks again for the advice:T, and for anyone else in the same situation I definitely think you should take half an hour of your day to get a letter printed and posted off!

Brilliant news

Shock absorbers are entirely appropriate in so many ways - can't beat a sweetner!

Very welcome, I will always be grateful for the support I have from people sharing experiences here. We are stronger together but we all need to recognise we have something to offer and keep the community/thread alive even if it's company and moral support which is just as important as the technical advice.

To anyone else considering battling with interest woes, what have you got to loose?

HHx

Hopelessly_Hopeful

schmalf wrote: »

Hello all, posted on here March time about entering a DMP but since have been lurking / worrying / faffing and not doing it. Well I am finally sick of having no money, spending most of my time panicking about it all, robbing Peter to pay Paul and having heart palpitations from the stress of it all .
So I am on it.
Have so far opened a new bank account with RBS (not linked to any debts), have just received confirmation of all my non debt direct debits having switched so I am fully set up now. Have cancelled the debt direct debits from my old account with HSBC. Have made my first token payment of £1 to Virgin and told them I am having difficulties and talking to Stepchange - they have replied and agreed to give me 30 days to set up what I am doing, and also agreed only contact by post or email. Have withdrawn money from old account to new account. Will be making my other three token payments this week to Halifax, Barclaycard(Egg) and HSBC and informing them I am in difficulties.
After these payments are made (via internet banking from old account) I will then send my Debt Remedy DMP application to Stepchange. Didnt want to do this till I had made the token payments and got my new account fully operational as I was worried that it could interfere with the process if any of the banks got wind of the imminent DMP.
One question I have is that I have a small branch based saving account with Halifax. I lost the book so they are sending me a statement and said I would need to take this and ID to a branch to withdraw the money - spoke to them last week and they said it would be with me within 15 days. Obviously by this time I will have made the token payment - can they offset from a branch based savings account? can they block me trying to withdraw?
Feeling really worried but also positive. I spoke about putting my other halfs debts into the DMP too in my March post but have since decided against it. Think it is better that his credit rating isn't bashed to bits too, plus by having an affordable payment into the DMP we can clear the debts he has (v small compared to mine!) and then put the spare onto the DMP, hopefully finishing it quicker. So just have to break the news to him and hope he sees the positive side of all this, ie me not having an internal breakdown every time we need extra money for something and also getting our lives back a bit. I have been so flippin frugal these past few years struggling to pay all our bills that even going onto the DMP will make me feel like Ive actually got some money - now that's a LBM if I don't know what.
Does this all sound like I am doing the right things to you all - thank goodness for finding this board and all the inspiring people on it - don't know what I wouldve done without finding it. xx

Morning

Welcome

The could offset but unlikely they will be so quick to be that joined up. If you are worried you could pay hallifax the full pament this month then send them dmp stuff next month.

Good Luck

HHx

schmalf

Thanks for the replies. I was worried about not doing a token payment as on various posts I read that the creditors don't like it if you have treated one of them differently from the others?

Think I will take my chances and do the token payment - as you say HH they will probably not be quick enough, particularly as it is a branch based account. If they do then it is just a hundred or so pounds in there and I suppose it isn't the end of the world if they take it onto the CC debt. I had forgotten about it actually as the book was lost years ago and it is one of those savings accounts that was opened years ago by family - I actually didn't think there was anything in it and then it appeared on my internet banking but with no way of accessing it!! How cruel being able to see it but not get to it!:mad:

carlyfluck

yippeeee, just had a reply from Lloyds regarding my letter saying that interest has been stopped on all of our debts with them! but wont re pay anything that has already been charged. im not overally fussed just happy the debts will be going down instead of up. :j

Hopelessly_Hopeful

HHx

schmalf wrote: »

Thanks for the replies. I was worried about not doing a token payment as on various posts I read that the creditors don't like it if you have treated one of them differently from the others?

Think I will take my chances and do the token payment - as you say HH they will probably not be quick enough, particularly as it is a branch based account. If they do then it is just a hundred or so pounds in there and I suppose it isn't the end of the world if they take it onto the CC debt. I had forgotten about it actually as the book was lost years ago and it is one of those savings accounts that was opened years ago by family - I actually didn't think there was anything in it and then it appeared on my internet banking but with no way of accessing it!! How cruel being able to see it but not get to it!:mad:

Because DMPs are informal we tend to think abut general principles but you will see they are consistently inconsistently applied. Luck of the draw!

Sounds like a good plan.

Good luck!

HHx

Hopelessly_Hopeful

carlyfluck wrote: »

yippeeee, just had a reply from Lloyds regarding my letter saying that interest has been stopped on all of our debts with them! but wont re pay anything that has already been charged. im not overally fussed just happy the debts will be going down instead of up. :j

Oh my, excellent news, well done, long may it last.

HHx

Debtfreeday

Hi All - so as you will from Previous threads we are about to start our DMP and getting prepared - so I thought I would post on progress in case there is any useful information for others.

Our priority this week has been to open up a new current account as part of our DMP will be the overdraft, personal loan and 3 CC all with Halifax.

I applied for and got a Loyds current account (no overdraft!) without any problems and have transferred what we had left, I then panicked and discovered (always research first!) that they are part of the same group as Halifax.

Called SC to get advice on which account I could open that was not linked and they advised me that they have recently had it confirmed that Halifax cant access funds held in lloyds (as of about 3 weeks ago) - not recommending anyone follows this without getting their advice first - but it seems like we will be OK.

So step 1 complete - now we can start the contact process and arrange first payments from new account.

As a saefty measure I have also applied for a Coop account as back up - just in case.

Scouter

Hi all.

I'm still in the process of setting up my DMP, and getting my head around everything we need to do, and 'selling' it to my wife.

This stems from the fact that although we've always had a joint account for the mortgage and main bills, we've always been paid into our own accounts, and had our 'own' money. Consequently, we've both always carried on in our own merry ways, never really knowing how the other is doing. Because most of the debt is in my name, she has a feeling that I've mismanaged my money and she is having to bail me out!

My feeling is we would possibly not have got into this mess in the first place if we did everything jointly and both had a handle on what was happening with our income / expenditure. [This was on the advice of my Father in Law, when we bought our house back in 1994. He'd been through a messy divorce and thought it was better we kept our money separate!] With hindsight, I wish we'd ignored him, but still...

Anyway, I've just caught up with this thread and a few questions / concerns have come to mind, which I hope you lovely lot can help / reassure me with.

I've just seen mentioned that Halifax can't access Lloyds accounts: Does this mean Lloyds can't access Halifax either? Our mortgage is with them (fully up to date), my wife has a savings account with them which the child allowance is paid into, and she is generally 'comfortable' using them. This will go some way towards appeasing her...

On the subject of the mortgage, our present fixed interest deal has just ended, and whilst at the moment the monthly payment has dropped for now, I obviously would like to go back to fixed interest at some point. I realise changing to a different provider is going to be out of the question, but are Halifax likely to refuse us a fixed interest rate in the future if our credit rating is shot? As I say, we've never missed a payment (ever). Obviously, I can pick up the phone and ask, but has anyone any experience?

Also, both car insurances are up for renewal soon - next month and January. Both are paid monthly at present, which is budgeted for in the DMP, but once the plan actually starts, is this likely not to be an option? On the other hand, as both are up to date, could we just auto-renew? I know under normal circumstances that's the last thing you should do, but if it keeps us insured for another year we may have to swallow it.

Once everything is up and running, we should have a little to put away for emergencies, so next year it might not be a problem to pay in one go, but at present it's not an option. And we can't do without the cars, before anyone suggests it!

TIA

Debtfreeday

Scouter wrote: »

Hi all.

I've just seen mentioned that Halifax can't access Lloyds accounts: Does this mean Lloyds can't access Halifax either? Our mortgage is with them (fully up to date), my wife has a savings account with them which the child allowance is paid into, and she is generally 'comfortable' using them. This will go some way towards appeasing her...

...this was from me earlier - that was the advice given to me by a counsellor at SC - however, I would always advise doing your own research as well. This is very nerve racking for us at the moment because of the way I am paid, we actually have Novembers cash already in the 'new' account at exactly the right level to pay the DMP and live on the budget for November - and so far all our debts are 100% up-to-date so until I see the first payments go out and Halifax really dont touch the account then I wont be 100% happy - hence why I have also applied for a Co-Op current as back-up.

Good luck with it all!

esj13

Just had an email from one of my creditors thanking me for informing them of my difficult financial situation and that they await contact from Sc and they will then freeze the interest.
This is hopefully a good omen.