DMP & Mutual Support Thread - Part 9

Bettingmad

Sazzie23 wrote: »

Hi Bettingmad

That is good news, I think, maybe it depends on if they credit check you or not. Stepchange ask you not to take on any more credit, and to me, if you are having a credit check, its credit! My own feeling is that if you have the right budget in place you should be able to pay in full - most times its more costly with instalments too. However I think it is good news that its possible to do it if you need to.

Hi DebtMagnet

Good news about the DMP, sorry its getting a bit complicated.
As you know DMP are voluntary on both sides, which creditors are being difficult, maybe someone here can advise. If you use your SC debt remedy paperwork for the IandE, maybe they will be prepared to accept it?

My advice would be to contact the negative creditors with your SC budget details, and see what they say, meantime let SC know and take advice from them, but probably continue with payments as if you were in DMP so they are getting something. Do not stress over the letters about handing to collections, they will continue to come with some creditors no matter what you and they do. Collections have no more rights to get you to pay, they just try harder! Make sure you both know what your legals are with collections agencies and baliffs and stuff - read SC website for more on this.

See if anyone else had similar problems, it might help to know what your total amounts are - if your feel up to saying- mine are £32k now down to £28k:(

You can sit in judgement all day long if you want regarding paying installments. The poster asked a question as it was a concern to them and I answered it to put them at ease. It did not require the interjection followed by an explanation mark about your personal views about how wrong it is to consider installments for insurance

Hopelessly_Hopeful

DebtMagnet wrote: »

Hi all

had a busy few weeks with the two jobs and with a bit of sickness thrown in I have not been on here as much as usual. Have caught up now though so hello to all the fellow noobs like me who are just setting sail on the old good ship DMP!!

So just to update my own position:

DMP all set up with SC - 1st payment 1st Nov. Have spoken to all creditors about the impending DMP and their reactions ranged from supportive and agreeing it was the right thing to do, to sounding like they didn't really care what I do!!

Have also sent letters and I am now aware the SC must have also sent the letters offering reduced payments.

Up to that point I had been feeling really positive. However I have had a heap of mail this week and none of it seems to be good.

Firstly the creditor summary showing the calculated payment 'split' from SC was wrong in that 2 of our creditors would have been getting more than what we were paying them anyway because of the way they work things out. Anyway a phonecall yesterday sorted that out so not a big deal really.

We have 8 accounts on the DMP split over 4 different creditors. Further letters from SC today have advised that 2 of the 4 creditors have rejected the offers of reduced payments.

At the same time both creditors have replied direct to our letters saying they need an I&E completing before they can consider anything. Add to this several 'we are passing your account to our collections dept' type letters and its all been a bit negative to say the least and has sent the wife in to a bit of a wobble about what will happen to us and that they will want us to pay in full again! Its also made me worry that my attempts to make the budget realistic have meant that they think we are not being as tight with it as we could and should.

Having read other posters experiences on here who are doing this all at the same time as us I had felt quite hopeful that things would be accepted and we could get on and start dealing with this.

Anyway my query is about these letters and what to do next.

The creditors have not told us directly that they have rejected the offers of payment and have seemingly only informed SC so far. So do I simply ignore it all as SC say to do, or do I try and contact the creditors now to see what the problem is and to see if there is anything I can do about it?

I know from reading here that the first few months are crazy and things get crossed in the post etc, and I have prepared for some rejections and refusals over freezing interest etc. But I guess I just wasn't prepared for ALL of the responses so far to be negative

Cheers
DM

Try not to be disheartened. My situation was the same. I managed to get lots stopped for a while though but several did reapply later. I saw a marked shift at 3 months. I think one of my disadvantages in getting interest stopped was my original DFD was less than 3.5 years. The longer away it is the more chance of getting interest frozen. I did challenge interest and got much lowered or frozen. Later people claimed I was no longer in financial difficulty even though the DMP had removed my other options etc! I felt very guilty about the DMP for a long time and hence I accepted interest rates etc without as much fight as I might have. Had I my time again I'd have fought much harder for reductions and freeze. That said I will have paid approx. £6k over 4 years which equates to 5% APR so I am comfortable with that but a shame I had to trash the credit rating as I will want another mortgage at some point.

My advice is get reading and challenging, lots of mini targets too and the time will soon pass and you will see how to get more for less, you will start to see and enjoy the positive outlook.

Let us know how you get on.

HHx

Find_The_Real

DebtMagnet wrote: »

Hi all

had a busy few weeks with the two jobs and with a bit of sickness thrown in I have not been on here as much as usual. Have caught up now though so hello to all the fellow noobs like me who are just setting sail on the old good ship DMP!!

So just to update my own position:

DMP all set up with SC - 1st payment 1st Nov. Have spoken to all creditors about the impending DMP and their reactions ranged from supportive and agreeing it was the right thing to do, to sounding like they didn't really care what I do!!

Have also sent letters and I am now aware the SC must have also sent the letters offering reduced payments.

Up to that point I had been feeling really positive. However I have had a heap of mail this week and none of it seems to be good.

Firstly the creditor summary showing the calculated payment 'split' from SC was wrong in that 2 of our creditors would have been getting more than what we were paying them anyway because of the way they work things out. Anyway a phonecall yesterday sorted that out so not a big deal really.

We have 8 accounts on the DMP split over 4 different creditors. Further letters from SC today have advised that 2 of the 4 creditors have rejected the offers of reduced payments.

At the same time both creditors have replied direct to our letters saying they need an I&E completing before they can consider anything. Add to this several 'we are passing your account to our collections dept' type letters and its all been a bit negative to say the least and has sent the wife in to a bit of a wobble about what will happen to us and that they will want us to pay in full again! Its also made me worry that my attempts to make the budget realistic have meant that they think we are not being as tight with it as we could and should.

Having read other posters experiences on here who are doing this all at the same time as us I had felt quite hopeful that things would be accepted and we could get on and start dealing with this.

Anyway my query is about these letters and what to do next.

The creditors have not told us directly that they have rejected the offers of payment and have seemingly only informed SC so far. So do I simply ignore it all as SC say to do, or do I try and contact the creditors now to see what the problem is and to see if there is anything I can do about it?

I know from reading here that the first few months are crazy and things get crossed in the post etc, and I have prepared for some rejections and refusals over freezing interest etc. But I guess I just wasn't prepared for ALL of the responses so far to be negative

Cheers
DM

Hello DM

I wouldn't worry too much about the responses at the moment as the first payment has not been processed and it can sometimes take a while for the paperwork to filter through to each department it is sent from. Also being passed over to the debt department is sometimes not a bad thing as they are more used to dealing with debt and can sometimes be more helpful.

SC would have said if your proposal was not viable so I would just sit it out and let the plan settle down as things can change a lot once they get that first payment from SC and also keep in mind sometimes they just send out a standard letter that seems to make no sense but in reality they are accepting of it and happy to be paid what SC send. The Co-op with me kept insisting every time I rang that they had no knowledge of my DMP but every month managed to apply my payment to the right account and froze the interest.

Good luck and although I appreciate the set up can be very stressful things will settle down.

Find_The_Real

Just my own little view on the car insurance debate, although in an ideal world it would be great to be able to afford to pay for car insurance in one go and thereby avoiding any credit charge, for most people on a strict budget for a DMP this is difficult. Even if you are good and save a bit more each month, it is very tempting to use that saved money should a real disaster happen. I am all for pay monthly as I just think it is far easier on the budgeting side of things.

Puzzcat

Equilibrium13 wrote: »

That's great news that they have accepted, hope you can get the matter of interest sorted!

Would you mind sharing the page numbers with the letter/s for asking creditors to freeze interest and charges, please? I've been looking through but can't find them. Or is there a section somewhere with template letters? Thanks in advance

Hi Equi !

Sorry there isn't a section for template letters on here, but these letters do pop up quite frequently.. The one I have earmarked is a TTFTM letter, on this thread post 2285. Hope this helps...

Debtfreeday

...quick tip - sure most of you have already picked up on this - but here it is anyway. So I noticed a few people saying they were having difficulty getting the account numbers & details of everything - for example we shred everything immediately - so I spent about 30 mins going through our 'old' current account (before it gets closed down) online, it was really easy to find, account numbers, DD references, monthly payment amounts and dates etc through the online banking facility, just glad I thought of doing this before the account gets closed and we lose out online facility. All transferred onto a simple excel sheet now and referenced against the SC report to make sure we have captured everything, and importantly all the 'bill' DD's we need to transfer across, then final step will be using the online portal of our old account to delete everything and then we can contact the bank (as our OD is part of our DMP).

Standingtall

Hi everyone:j

I just thought i would drop in to say hello and give some encouragement to those just starting out on their DMP. I began my DMP a couple of years ago and owed around GBP17k when it was all added up - very scary indeed! I could only afford to pay back around £120 per month so the length of my DPM felt like a life sentance, yet for the first time in many months I was able to sleep at night without waking up to a cold fear in my stomach. So off i started on my journey and was fortunate that many of my creditors including MBNA and Santander froze interest and charges instantly. Payplan were great and also provided an insurnace that covers my debt so i was also able to maintain peace of mind through a couple of restructures at work. Eventually, and within that first 12 months, I convinced all my creditors to stop interest and charges.

A pay rise at work enabled me to increase my payments in the 2nd year and again this year. I now have around 10 years left on my DMP if I was to continue at my current payment level.

Recently however, i have met a wonderful man and we are due to marry next year. Explaining my financial issues was a very hard and painful process, fortunately he was very understanding. Sadly it means, of course, that we cannot be financiallly linked which is very sad as we cannot even look to having a joint mortgage. Nonetheless, this means I will be able to increase my DMP payment substanstially next year and may even save a little in order to either pay off some debts / offer full and final settlements / or maybe take some of the debts out of the DMP and snowball them. Various options are available and I shall have to see which works best.

One thing I am certain of is that the DMP allowed me to live again without the horror of mounting debts causing me stress and possible illness and now, a few years later, I am in a wonderful place with a wonderful man. I could never have dreamed that this would happen and would not have believed anyone who said it was possible.

Be open, be honest and retain hope.

I will update in 12 months, or sooner if things change.

Good luck to you all.

schmalf

Thanks Standingtall that is such an inspiring post. I am about to get started on my DMP journey and my monthly payment will be fairly low and like you look like it will drag on for years - I know when my OHs debts are paid within the first year I will be able to up the payment to speed it up, but I do worry a bit when I see how quickly others are managing to pay their debts off!!

Glad to hear life is working out for you and that going onto the DMP has allowed your life to move forwards. Although I have many things to be happy about in my life (fantastic OH, family, friends and animals, my house and my health), I feel like I haven't been able to move forward, stuck in a horrible rut of worry and debt and not seeing a way out of it. I really, really hope going onto my DMP puts and end to this and helps me to enjoy all the positive things in my life again.

Good luck for the future

Schmalf x

Find_The_Real

Debtfreeday wrote: »

... for example we shred everything immediately -.

Hello Debtfreeday

Now you are entering a DMP it might be perhaps prudent that you start a filing system instead of shredding. Not saying that the preditors have severe memory loss but I would keep everything that is sent to you, including any details of acceptance of the plan and interest details. It is also worth keeping anything where they transfer the debt to another department/DCA. Where it might end up that the debt is sold on this where the documents from the early days can come in handy!

I have obsessively kept everything from the last 2 years and will be retaining it for another 10 as I have a mortgage shortfall and it has been very helpful at times to go back over the paperwork when there has been a query.

Debtfreeday

Find_The_Real wrote: »

Hello Debtfreeday

Now you are entering a DMP it might be perhaps prudent that you start a filing system instead of shredding.

FTR - thanks that's great advice - and not something I would have considered until too late - so great advice thank you!