DMP & Mutual Support Thread - Part 9

digley

Hi growurown
Thanks for your reply. The banks have refused to reimburse interest because it is no fault of theirs.
I have lodged a complaint with payplan but I also suspect they won't compensate me and their error will cost me dearly.
I don't think I can trust paypaln anymore and have thought about transferring to SC but don't really want the hassle of setting it all up again. Now the amounts have been agreed I wonder if I could contact my creditors and offer to pay the same amount myself ?
Would that put me at a disadvantage not being in a plan with a well known company ?

Growurown

digley wrote: »

Hi growurown
Thanks for your reply. The banks have refused to reimburse interest because it is no fault of theirs.
I have lodged a complaint with payplan but I also suspect they won't compensate me and their error will cost me dearly.
I don't think I can trust paypaln anymore and have thought about transferring to SC but don't really want the hassle of setting it all up again. Now the amounts have been agreed I wonder if I could contact my creditors and offer to pay the same amount myself ?
Would that put me at a disadvantage not being in a plan with a well known company ?

Hi Digley. You can administer your DMP yourself. Nedcab are very good and I have posted a link.

http://mymoney.nedcab.org.uk/moneyadvice/remedy_4.asp

I have heard some creditors prefer to go through a well known provider, and lots of people like the security of having someone to call if things get difficult. I think you need to be organised and maybe prepared to do a bit more work initially but once set up and running it shouldn't take up much of your time. If you aren't happy to carry on with Payplan then you will need to do something else and I don't think setting up a new plan with Step Change will be any more work than going it alone. You could try and phone your creditors and offer to pay the same and see what they say, but I suspect they will want you to send them details of your I&E and maybe send copies of pay slips and bank statements too. No harm in asking though and hopefully they will just agree.

Monkeyballs

Monkeyballs wrote: »

HOLY !!!!!!!!

I just got a call from Cheque Centre saying they got my letter and are willing to accept £230 as a full and final settlement for my debt with them!!!!

The guy is going to email and post a copy of the agreement clearly marking it as full & final as I requested in the letter I sent!!!

He said that it's the equivalent of 10 months payments and as I was a good customer in the past then he can authorise it

Even better, the balance was higher than I realised at £949.35 for a payment of £230!!! Feels great!!!

If people could check to make sure that I'm safe paying against the email (snail mail letter to follow in post on Monday) reads;

Please accept this letter as confirmation of a full and final settlement offer. As you can see above your current balance stands at £949.35. Cheque Centre will be happy to close your account with a one off payment of £230.00. If this payment is made before 31/01/2014 the remaining balance will be written off and the account (*******) will be closed.

I looked on my Step Change debts and sure enough, it's the amount he quotes... That's £700 wiped off! Is there anything I need to be wary of and what is the best way to pay? In the bank so I get a receipt or over the phone so it is registered immediately?

Hmmm... I wonder if Money Shop would accept £100 for £418.15...

Cheers all!

MB

Evening all,

Flushed with success of my Cheque Centre F&F offer being accepted I have contacted the Money Shop and offered £80 with a view to paying maybe £100...

It will be a stretch but I have a couple of old transformers that I know I can sell for about £50 plus my brother is happy to still give me £250 (of which £30 will pay for Cheque Centre leaving £20) leaving perhaps £30 to scrape up from somewhere which shouldn't be too hard... Maybe sell on some old CD's and DVD's...

It feels good possibly not the best way to handle my debts but if Money Shop accept then the savings from Cheque Centre and Money Shop combined will be circa £1030! That's over two whole months of DMP payments and frees up about £40 per month to go to other creditors

I think I'm rambling a little now... Sorry folks! LOL I blame my medication...

G'night all!!!

MB xxx

Time_to_face_the_music

digley wrote: »

Payplan have messed everything up for me this month and I'm now back to square one with my creditors all charging interest again.

Over the last seven months I had managed to get all creditors bar one to stop or greatly reduce interest on my accounts.
This month however I started to receive phone calls and text messages from the banks again complaining that they haven't received payment. All have reverted to charging me full interest.

I contacted payplan thinking there might just have been a delay because of Christmas etc but no, they just haven't paid it. They received it from me 3 weeks ago as usual and aren't sure why it's still in their bank but they will look into it.
Well thanks very much payplan. I now face further problems and increased debts, maybe thousands in interest because it will take me months to get the interest reduced again.

Not sure where to go from here. Any suggestions ?

digley wrote: »

Hi growurown
Thanks for your reply. The banks have refused to reimburse interest because it is no fault of theirs.
I have lodged a complaint with payplan but I also suspect they won't compensate me and their error will cost me dearly.
I don't think I can trust paypaln anymore and have thought about transferring to SC but don't really want the hassle of setting it all up again. Now the amounts have been agreed I wonder if I could contact my creditors and offer to pay the same amount myself ?
Would that put me at a disadvantage not being in a plan with a well known company ?

Hi and welcome digley :hello:


Payplan need to sort this out and ensure that one way or another you are recompensed for these additional interest charges. Have you followed their complaints procedure?


http://www.payplan.com/complaints-procedure.php


If so and you are not happy with the result, take this to the Financial Ombudsman Service (FOS), they can deal both with the creditor situation and with the Payplan issue. They are open today so you can call them and discuss the whole problem


http://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/consumer/complaints.htm


Regarding the future, as already recommended by GUO, I use the NED CAB self managed DMP and can't praise it highly enough, it is excellent. Creditors have no right to treat you differently if you are self managing your DMP and I managed to get interest stopped that StepChange hadn't!


Good luck and please let us know how you get on.

Time_to_face_the_music

thehistorygirl wrote: »

Hello all. I had my lightbulb moment on Tuesday and have just started the ball rolling with Payplan. Hope to have my DMP in place by this time next month. I have been an ostrich over my debts for a long time - I have a carrier bag full of unopened cc statements and default charge letters upstairs - but have decided that 2014 is the time to stop burying my head in the sand and get it sorted out. I'd completely underestimated how much I owed and was shocked to find out it was £5.5K. I certainly have not been a reckless spender, but a combination of job losses, hubby's employer not providing work and bad luck resulted in having to rely on credit to survive. Not any longer though. For me, a DMP is a chance to start afresh and it will be fantastic to actually see my bank account in credit every month. Job prospects are hopefully looking up as I have recently graduated as a mature student, so with any luck I have increased my earning potential. I just hope that my creditors agree to freeze the interest otherwise I will be in for the long haul!

Hi and welcome thehistorygirl :hello:


Well done on starting to get everything sorted. Don't throw anything away in that carrier bag, buy or make a cheap filing box with a section of each debt. File the ones you already have and then keep everything that every creditor sends to you throughout the course of your DMP.

Don't worry too much about at the moment about getting interest stopped, we can help you with that if Payplan don't manage it.

Please ask if you have any questions and stick around for advice, help and support.

Time_to_face_the_music

hopeful_at_last wrote: »

well all my creditors have froze interest except aqua and barclaycard but they have reduced it so I cant complain too much.....onwards n upwards

Reduced interest can still be cause for a complaint. If your DMP payment is affected by the amount of interest you are paying and will hence extend the length of your DMP, it's worth fighting .....

Hopelessly_Hopeful

Morning All


Welcome history girl and well done to MB.


Hope you get sorted Digley


HHx

Sazzie23

Welcome history girl, Raspberry and any other newbies I may have missed, it's been busy on here again.

Digley, that's shocking news and you must be very peed off with the whole experience. I think your creditors are being very harsh if you've been a good DMPer up to this point. As well as complaining to Payplan and FoS, I might think about complaining to the creditors, payplan is funded by the financial services sector so they need to hear that they are not getting what they pay for.

On a more positive note, you sound very competent and I'm sure you could run your own DMP, but switching to SC should be relatively easy if you'd rather not take it on. If you try the SC online debt remedy then it's almost done, I'm not completely positive that the debt remedy is suitable if you already have a DMP in place but it's worth a try or give them a call on Monday.

I think you could probably do one complaint letter, and then adapt it for each creditor, this would take the pressure off a bit. Good luck and do come back and tell us how you are getting on.

Right then folks, a little advice needed here;
My resolution post start of DMP at the beginning of last year was to open all of my mail, I have achieved that, and it is a good feeling. I haven't gone back and opened up all of the older letters though, what should I do with them? Don't what to put them in the recycling unopened, thought about having a bonfire but not really suitable where I live.

Thamesmeadhammer

Hello all,

Just opened a letter from Santander and it seems that they arre still charging me interest on my debt.
I am with Stepchange with my DMP, would I need to to write to Santander myself or ask stepchange.
I have looked through the forum but an unable to find a template.
thanks
Thamesmead

Puzzcat

Thamesmeadhammer wrote: »

Hello all,

Just opened a letter from Santander and it seems that they arre still charging me interest on my debt.
I am with Stepchange with my DMP, would I need to to write to Santander myself or ask stepchange.
I have looked through the forum but an unable to find a template.
thanks
Thamesmead

You would need to write to santander...try page 115 post 2285