Advice needed please - Claiming bank charges while in DMP + More

warn82

Morning,

I had my lighbulb moment about 6 months ago and have followed this site very closely. In fact reading this forum enouraged me to contact the CCCS and enter in to a DMP.

I have debts to 12 creditors in total but one in particular is causing me a lot of problems. I have a nationwide credit card with a £2503 balance which has been part of my DMP for 6 months but now they are refusing payments and want me to up them. I went through a review with the CCCS and the payment increased by £9 to them but the still want more.

They are threatening me with a charging order and under no circumstances can this happen to me! My mortgage is with my current employer and im worried in case i lose my job if a charging order goes against me and my work will obviously find out about it.

Anyway, i have 2 other debts with nationwide from overdrafts of around £500 and £2000. I estimate i am owed about £1500 in bank charges back from Nationwide.

I was wondering if anyone had claimed back bank charges from a creditor they were in a DMP with and how did they react? The last thing i want to do is make them start legal proceedings on my flexi accounts as well!

On a side note i called nationwide regarding my creditcard today and they were very unhelpful. They started asking for the balance on my mortgage (trying to find out how much equity i have in the property). I said i wasent willing to provide that information and i know myself i have no equity there, she just said it didnt matter and she would find out elsewhere!

Sorry for the rant but im hoping someone can help me with the DMP bank charges issue.

Thanks in advance.

fermi

The threat of a charging order is simply a scare tactic to make you pay them in preference to the others.

They cannot get a charging order without first getting a CCJ against you, which you then default on.

See: http://www.nationaldebtline.co.uk/england_wales/factsheet.php?page=15_charging_orders_in_the_county_court

From a post of mine yesterday, on a similar case:

I cannot emphasise enough that the threats to take you to court are designed to intimidate and frighten you. They depend on you not knowing your rights, and the court process. They are designed solely to frighten you into making payments preferentially to that creditor.

The legal position is this:

Should the creditor take you to court, you always have the opportunity to make a fair offer of payments by instalment.
The level of this payment that the court would accept is assessed in exactly the same way as your DMP payment is.

The creditors know this, which is why they are attempting scare tactics to try to get more money out of you.

They know that they would get nowhere with court.

Get back in touch with CCCS ASAP, who will confirm this.

Good luck...

warn82

Thanks a lot...thats made me feel a bit better about the situation. They havent even froze the interest on my card so my balance is going up and up...i just want to get rid of this debt!

Does anyone know about the DMP/Bank Charges situation?

Gemmzie

You can claim back bank charges, but generally it upsets them and then they won't freeze interest.

I've worked out the amount which each creditor owes us back in charges and when we send for Full & Finals, I will ask them to take that into account.
For example, owe £1k, charges are £300 so I will offer a max of £500

mo1_2

does no one think you should get the charges paid back,cos the interest is being charged with these charges

Crown

Be Careful of this. I am on a self managed DMP and my creditors have frozen all interest and charges at present.

After looking into reclaiming charges and taking advice from people on here and the Reclaiming boards the general feeling was if I did reclaim my charges then they could make life very unpleasent by reinstating the interest charges. This would mean that the £2000 I could reclaim would be eaten up by charges/Interest within 3 months or so.


I currently plan to pay this debt off firstand reclaim the charges once its at a reasonable level that the interest will not cripple me. I know having the charges refunded would be great but you have 6 years to reclaim so is there any rush?

warn82

Hi Crown, thanks for your reply. I was thinking the same thing about the interest, i dont want to rock the boat so to speak. I was only planning it because of the pressure nationwide credit card and putting me under. They want this money back from me when i could well pay most of the debt off with my bank charges.

Do you think it would be safe to at least request my statements going back 6 years and work out actually how much in owed? without taking any action on it for the time being?

Thanks

Crown

Hi, Sorry for the delay in replying. I had to go out last night and idnt get back until late.

Yes, I dont think there is anything wrong in sending for your statements as this is your right and at least you will have a clear idea of what is owed to you.

I had actually kept my bank statements so know full well how much I am owed but cant see a problem with sending for them.

Good luck with it and let us know how eyou get on