DMP & Mutual Support Thread - Part 9

dad2one

Re - the charges and interest thing.
Has anyone taken a case to the FOS and had a negative response?
Even if FOS cannot enforce the dropping / refunding of charges, a persistent creditor would be viewed with little respect under any legal observation.
The options of what to do when FOS can't help could be interesting....

lindsayr2403

Barclaycard have frozen my interest on my DMP - all my creditors have… guess I'm lucky then…. Perhaps a call to them (when you are feeling up to it - i know how you feel about that!)

hopeful_at_last

Time_to_face_the_music wrote: »

Have you written an official letter of complaint to Aqua and Barclaycard?


If not, let me know and we can provide you with a template to use.


If you did and did not get the result you wanted, did you follow the complaint up with the FOS?

I haven't written just yet, where are the templates for this please?

hopeful_at_last

thank you all for your input it helps:T

abbylou

debtdawg wrote: »

Just to update that Barclaycard responded and said that they are charging interest at a vastly reduced rate of 3% apr and cannot reduce it further as I am making payments of between 1 and 1.5% of the total debt.

Barclaycard are a funny lot. Between dh and I we have 3 cards with them. On 2 they have cut all interest and we have paid 0% since we started with our DMP. The other one is still charging 3%. Dh argued and argued but they insisted this was as low as they could/would go. We have had to accept it. We didn't want to start quoting our others in case there had been a mistake and they put the interest back on!

Growurown

Time_to_face_the_music wrote: »

Have you challenged Halifax treating accounts differently? The FOS take a dim view of this and we beat NatWest with this defence, so it's worth a go .....

Yes I did and they said it was because of the total amount owed. We had two bank accounts and two credit cards. One bank account and one CC had large amounts owed and the other two small amounts (under £1000). The CC with the small amount was passed to a DCA and the smaller of the two bank accounts incurred no charges. The CC is the real problem. We haven't made much of a dent in the debt due to charges so we complained with no joy and now we have gone to the FO with an official complaint. Halifax are a bit weird in how they do things. When we have a working agreement they charge 1% but if the agreement is broken they pile on charges. As the agreement was broken a couple of times last year when we made reduced payments due to car problems they piled the charges on until a new agreement was in place. This seems to take ages to sort out so a few months of full charges and interest really mounts up. Anyway we shall see what the FO can do for us. Fingers crossed!

Sazzie23

Hi Everyone

Very busy on here yesterday, and thanks to all who are contributing to a fascinating and useful discussion, there will be alot of lurkers who will be reading this and appreciating your fantastic advice, so on their behalf - THANK YOU.

Hi Mojo & Pickles:hello: I know you are having a rough time at the moment - but hang on in there, I know it will settle down and as you'll start to make greater inroads and the debts do go down, you'll start to feel happier.

Barclaycard definately have an official policy regarding interest and minimum repayments, I've seen it quoted somewhere but hadn't thought about the fact that as the debt goes down the % of minimum payment will go up and so will the interest :mad:, but never mind by then I'll have paid off more of the others. I can defo see why self managed might be the way to go at a later stage.

Hope you all have an effective debt busting weekend

Time_to_face_the_music

dad2one wrote: »

Re - the charges and interest thing.
Has anyone taken a case to the FOS and had a negative response?
Even if FOS cannot enforce the dropping / refunding of charges, a persistent creditor would be viewed with little respect under any legal observation.
The options of what to do when FOS can't help could be interesting....

I lost a case against M&S with the FOS. This was the beginning of the breakdown with StepChange (then CCCS) as M&S wrote and told us if we reduced the payment to them, they would stop interest. StepChange said they could not do this as it was not a fair payment blah blah and because M&S had offered us this option the FOS could not do anything.


I should have pulled out of the StepChange DMP at this stage and changed all my payments but did not have the confidence to do it, so instead threw every spare penny at the M&S debt to pay it off ASAP. Given my time again and with the knowledge I have now, I am certain that my actions would have been very different in starting up a DMP.

Time_to_face_the_music

hopeful_at_last wrote: »

I haven't written just yet, where are the templates for this please?

Try something like this, customising it for each creditor:

You

Date

Them

Dear Sir/Madam

Re: [Creditor name] account No: XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Thank you for your letter/statement concerning the above account. I am sorry that you feel unable to suspend interest/charges on the above account.

As you are aware, I/we am/are in a DMP with XXXXXXXX, reference number XXXXXXXX. The majority of my/our other creditors have agreed to the offer of payment and agreed to suspend any interest charges still accruing. They have accepted that to continue to charge interest would not assist us in my/our present financial difficulties, and can only serve to increase my/our total debt.

I/we have already paid considerable sums in interest to my/our account. If interest charges continue, the monthly instalments I/we am/are paying will not even cover that interest. Also, the cooperation of my/our other creditors who have agreed to freeze interest already would be put at risk.

I am aware that XXXXXXX subscribes to the Lending Code which states that lenders will consider reducing or suspending interest and charges if these would cause the debt to increase or lead to the repayment term becoming too extended. I would therefore be grateful if you would reconsider your decision not to freeze the interest. This would mean that the monthly payments I/we make would actually reduce the balance outstanding to your company.

Please consider this letter as a complaint about the interest charges you are continuing to apply to my account. I would like to see these stopped immediately and previous interest charges refunded.

If you are unable to help me with this issue, I will have no alternative but to take this case to the Financial Ombudsman Service.

I look forward to hearing from you as soon as possible.

Yours faithfully

You

Hopelessly_Hopeful

dad2one wrote: »

Re - the charges and interest thing.
Has anyone taken a case to the FOS and had a negative response?
Even if FOS cannot enforce the dropping / refunding of charges, a persistent creditor would be viewed with little respect under any legal observation.
The options of what to do when FOS can't help could be interesting....

Thanks and very welcome


Some you win some you don't. You wont win any without trying. Also good point you make about keeping them under scrutiny.


HHx