DMP & Mutual Support Thread - Part 9

Growurown

supersavershal wrote: »

Nine months into my DMP and it was going so well. All interest stopped and no problems.
Then last week car went wrong, it needs £400 work to get on road then another £150 for tax. I just don't think it's worth it. I drive 50 miles a day for work, it's a big car (7 seater) costs a lot in petrol and tax etc.
My parents neighbour is selling their car, they've only used it once a week for shopping. It's only done 29000 miles, is cheaper on tax, ins and fuel. I've cobbled together my emergency fund and a few bits but I am 600 short. My step change payment is £990, would they allow a reduced payment so I can get this car. In the long run it will free up money that I can put into my DMP.
And if I can make a reduced payment will creditors start ringing again and introduce interest and charges.

Having done this several times now I have found some of my creditors don't bat an eyelid and some write to say we have broken our agreement. I phone them at that point and explain and it has been fine. Halifax always want SC to send them an SOA again even though it hasn't changed. None of them have reintroduced interest or charges again, although different creditors may have different ideas.

As to dropping your payment to purchase another car I'm not sure how your DMP provider would deal with this. The only way to know is to discuss it with them. Who are you with? The other alternative (one some of us might not feel comfortable with) is not to tell them at all. Just say you need the money for repairs and leave it at that. The end result is the same, you need nearly £600 to keep the old car on the road anyway.

supersavershal

Thank you. Yes I think il do that, if I thought the car would be sorted I would pay for the repairs but I've just paid out so many times this year it's just too old and too costly to run. I'm with step change and I've never reduced payment before.
I work far away so public transport not an option.

Growurown

supersavershal wrote: »

Thank you. Yes I think il do that, if I thought the car would be sorted I would pay for the repairs but I've just paid out so many times this year it's just too old and too costly to run. I'm with step change and I've never reduced payment before.
I work far away so public transport not an option.

It's always difficult when a car gets to that stage, do you repair it and hope it lasts or do you call it a day and start again? The cost of the parts seems to have gone up a lot and sometimes I wonder if we are flogging a dead horse with our car:rotfl:

hopeful_at_last

Hi all
not posted for a few weeks hope everyones on that upward road to becoming debt free still.
Well my first dmp paymenthas cleared with payplan today so they will soon be sending payments and financial statements off....scarey times but also good times all rolled into one :eek:

antonic

hopeful_at_last wrote: »

Hi all
not posted for a few weeks hope everyones on that upward road to becoming debt free still.
Well my first dmp paymenthas cleared with payplan today so they will soon be sending payments and financial statements off....scarey times but also good times all rolled into one :eek:

I remember when I made first payment to Payplan in Dec 2005.

90 payments later in June 2013 I was DF.

Good luck you can do it !

Sazzie23

supersavershal wrote: »

Nine months into my DMP and it was going so well. All interest stopped and no problems.
Then last week car went wrong, it needs £400 work to get on road then another £150 for tax. I just don't think it's worth it. I drive 50 miles a day for work, it's a big car (7 seater) costs a lot in petrol and tax etc.
My parents neighbour is selling their car, they've only used it once a week for shopping. It's only done 29000 miles, is cheaper on tax, ins and fuel. I've cobbled together my emergency fund and a few bits but I am 600 short. My step change payment is £990, would they allow a reduced payment so I can get this car. In the long run it will free up money that I can put into my DMP.
And if I can make a reduced payment will creditors start ringing again and introduce interest and charges.

Hi super saver,

I've not needed to try this, but folk on here seem to suggest that having to have a reduced payment on DMP for the odd month seems to be accepted if per planned and discussed. I think it would be complicated to explain you were doing it for a new(er) car and if you said you needed to do it because your car was of the road for repairs you would not be telling an untruth?
Maybe you'd be able to free up some more cash to increase the DMP payment once emergency fund restocked?

dawnofwar wrote: »

Hello,

I hope its ok to join this thread, i have been lurking for a while and found your advice invaluable but i have a issue that im hoping for some advice about.

My husband and I have a joint DMP with Payplan. We have 3 outstanding debts, 1 with Barclaycard (which they have accepted) and 2 loans with Barclays (1 each).

We have just made our third payment to Payplan yet we are receiving phone calls from Barclays monthly as they say they have not received our offers (the paperwork only, they have received and acknowledged the actual monetary payments) from Payplan. The last time this happened was regarding my own loan at the beginning of the month, so i contacted Payplan who, whilst i was on the phone, sent both mine and my husbands information over to Barclays electronically.

Now last night my husband had a phonecall from Barclays who say they have nothing on their system regarding this and they will put his account on another 30 day hold until they receive it.

Now this is twice that Payplan have sent them the information and twice that Barclays say they haven't received anything.

I realise that it is still early days but im getting frustrated with receiving phone calls to have to explain everything all over again, only for the account to be put on 30 day hold then start getting phone calls again when its finished.

Obviously i am going to ring Payplan again this morning, but i wondered if anyone else had had the same issue with Barclays and is there anything that my husband and I can send them directly to try and get them to receive the documents?

Thank you.

Hi Dawnof war, welcome to the thread, hope it helps you.
Sounds like you are doing everything right, Payplan must have your correct details of the payments are being acknowledged.
Perhaps write - recorded delivery to Barclays to say...with payplan, they have sent you the details twice, what are you messing about at...well maybe not quite like that :rotfl:

I had the same initial Barclays problem, but only took one resend for them to get the hang of it, so good luck and come back and let us know how you got on, or what you decided to do.

crystal_pixie_2

Hi all - I have what seems like a daft question but it is troubling me so I thought I might get some opinions.

I have been on a DMP for 2 years now which is going really well. I have paid over £20k off a huge £60k debt.

At the time Step change told me to go to another bank to have my wages paid in which I did. I have a standard current account with Lloyds with no overdraft and just a debit card. There have been no issues with this account and I have never had any bounced DDs or anything like that.

My question is this - my debit card is due to be renewed in January and when I went in to pay in a cheque I was told that my account will be "reviewed". Obviously I my credit score will be terrible and I am worried they will close my account even though I have done nothing wrong.

Should I try and set up an account with Natwest or someone like that just in case? I would be stuffed if they closed my account as I have my wages paid into it.

runforlife

The main advice seems to be that when on DMP make sure your bank account is not from a bank of one of your creditors as they can take money in it to pay for your debt.

I used to be loyal and was with the Natwest for over 28 years! However nice the people at the the local branch were the tag line "Helpful Banking"didn't really apply. Bank people…I need help when I haven't got money more than I do when I have money!

So I have jumped ship. Moved everything over myself. Bit of work but with planning not that tricky and voila! A month to 6 weeks later everything is set up with my new bank and its running smoothly.

I have a review due in December with my old bank as I haven't closed it yet. There's a fiver in it at the moment. Think I'll cancel the review!

So Crystal Pixie just make sure your salary is paid into a different bank to one that you have a debt with. If you have no debt with Lloyds you should be ok but I guess you can never say never.

Puzzcat

crystal_pixie wrote: »

Hi all - I have what seems like a daft question but it is troubling me so I thought I might get some opinions.

I have been on a DMP for 2 years now which is going really well. I have paid over £20k off a huge £60k debt.

At the time Step change told me to go to another bank to have my wages paid in which I did. I have a standard current account with Lloyds with no overdraft and just a debit card. There have been no issues with this account and I have never had any bounced DDs or anything like that.

My question is this - my debit card is due to be renewed in January and when I went in to pay in a cheque I was told that my account will be "reviewed". Obviously I my credit score will be terrible and I am worried they will close my account even though I have done nothing wrong.

Should I try and set up an account with Natwest or someone like that just in case? I would be stuffed if they closed my account as I have my wages paid into it.

Hi, sorry I don't have the answer but am guessing as its a basic account and you run it well there wouldn't be any issues. They usually do reviews to ensure it is the best account for you and to try and sell you things!!!

Murphy2011

Just a quick update, had a day off today and as I have just had my 1 year review with SC I thought I would be brave and call of my creditors to find out whether they were charging interest/default dates etc. Gr8 news, all defaulted, most from only a month or so after I started DMP & no charges or interest being taken!!! The ones that defaulted a bit later have all agreed to send copy statements etc so I can check for anything that I might be able to get refunded (I had online for everything so been a bit blind until today!) I even had a nice chat with a couple of them about how their starting point for full & finals would be about 60% of the outstanding debt so that might give people some hope as well! All in all a good day, I feel more in control, everyone was really helpful and I have a new and revised Debt Free Date of 1st December 2020! Long time away but do-able!!! Hope everyone else is good and keep chins up!