Paying off DMP early

methekidsandthecat

Hello

I am at last in a position through family support of paying my DMP off early and would like to contact my 5 creditors direct for settlement figures. I have a couple of questions and wondered if anyone could help?

1. Can I do this independently from Step Change?

2. Is it best to write first to the individual companies for a settlement figure (I have found the template letter on the National Debtline site)?

3. I thought I would offer a low 25% initially - Tesco £1386.48, NatWest £318.33, Carbot (Barclaycard) £987.16, Egg (shown as Barclaycard on Step Change statement) £1052.17.

I am aware that they are likely to reject this but thought it would be a reasonable starting point. I have already paid off over £10k of debt over the last few years.

4. Has anyone had any success with these companies and if so how long does this process take?

Many thanks
Me

Tixy

Yes you can do it independantly of stepchange (although some poeple have posted to say stepchange did negotiate good deals for them).

Yes write to them, don't negotiate by phone. When making an offer put a date that your offer is valid to (which I don't think is in the NDL template). If the money is coming from a family member but only on condition that your DMP is fully paid off then you could put that in the letter to.

25% seems like a reasonable starting point. How long is your DMP forecast to last now (the longer it is then in theory the lower the offer they may accept).

methekidsandthecat

Thank you for the feed back Tixy.

The debt free date is October 2017 so still several years away....

methekidsandthecat

I must admit now that I look at the statement I can't understand why the Egg card is now reading as Barclaycard. The original Barclay card debt was sold on to Carbot.

Tixy

BC did take over a lot of egg cards (though not all if the debtor had defaulted before they took them over)