Reduced SC DMP payment to repay a whole debt?

Monkeyballs

Puzzcat wrote: »

It's in the post, but I may have forgotten to sign it.........

Bahhhhh!!!! Humbug!!!! LOL x

MB

LMJ10

How would creditors find out you have settled a debt with an other creditor tho!?

I know You'd have to tell SC to stop paying them etc but surely they wouldn't 'snitch' on you . . . Would they?

And surely if you had a chance of saving 50% off the debt they would advise you to agree to this?

[Deleted User]

LMJ10 wrote: »

How would creditors find out you have settled a debt with an other creditor tho!?

No they wouldn't, but SC would know, and they might b**ger you off, for breaching the terms of the DMP.

GibbsRule_No3

I had a PPI payout, so I sent pro-rata offers to all my creditors, obviously some only had a few pounds remaing, while others had £0000s. Two accepted, so I paid them, one said they would accept a higher offer, the other said nothing I offered them would be accepted, so I offered their share to the one that would accept a higher offer, thus three paid off. PPOV the remaining one did not deserve me paying them the full amount per month I had being paying out to all four. So I am continuing my DMP with them until it ends and have a bit if spare money to myself, well I did until the rent, gas, electric, phone, water rates and transport fares went up. I am with Payplan but offered the F&Fs off my own bat and told Payplan when I heard back. Creditors obviously don't treat us fairly when it comes to F&Fs so not really sure why, if you can pay off the small debts you shouldn't as the larger ones would probably turn you down anyway. It just saves the dancing around.

eyeopener2

If you can do it, I would.

My DMP was set up so the three (!) Pay day loans were paid off first, within 6 months or so. Did anybody get upset that they had been paid off and the rest would take 3 years?

No

And so what if they did get upset? What are they going to do? You've already broken the terms and conditions of your agreement and your just a number, nothing else.

As for upsetting stepchange. I find it highly unlikely that a) they will know or b) care and again you are a number, they won't be monitoring your accounts. Upsetting them is again, highly unlikely. It's just paying off your debt in a slightly different way.

You update your balance regularly anyway, so what difference does zeroing one out make?

I'd do what your planning as it is a great feeling paying off the small ones.

My opinion only though and I see others disagree.

[Deleted User]

eyeopener2 wrote: »

As for upsetting stepchange. I find it highly unlikely that a) they will know

Of course they will know, unless you intend to let them continue paying a creditor you have paid off.

Giraffeseeker

I'm not sure SC would question it too closely to be honest. It's not a huge debt. Just think of a reason to tell them to explain why it has suddenly gone.

My boyfriend paid off one DMP debt when he got PPI refund from an account which is long closed. Barclaycard were still interest charging and he wanted it gone, the outstanding amount was similar to the PPI refund so he just paid it when he got the refund and then told Stepchange the debt had gone. They did ask why and he just said they owed him some PPI and so took it off the debt. Not strictly the truth but SC didn't question it, just readjusted his DMP to pay everyone else a bit more.

The PPI excuse probably doesn't work for a payday loan of course - why not just say they offered you a F&F and your Mum found the paperwork lying around your house and paid it off as a gift/surprise for you, not knowing you had other debts? Or, tell them you got the balance wrong at the start of your DMP and owed less than you thought?

Edited to add: I probably wouldn't reduce your DMP payment to make that F&F though, that's a little unfair on other creditors and put SC in an awkward position. If you only need £20 to make up the payment then perhaps find that in your budget.

Monkeyballs

Hi all,

Thanks for all the replies, it's very much appreciated to hear from people in the same boat or who have been there before

Hopefully you can understand why I asked, I know it's not what I originally agreed nor the way the DMP should be run... It wouldn't be so bad if I couldn't justify it to myself! LOL

In the past SC have always taken a diplomatic stance saying something along the lines of "really you should pay us to distribute the funds equally among your creditors" but always followed it up with "but it's an informal agreement so just keep us informed to maintain accurate accounts"...

I'm not looking to cheat anyone out of what I owe them, just take advantage of reductions when they are offered I especially don't mind doing this when it's a PDL...

At no point am I looking to reduce my monthly debt repayment - I will always be repaying as much as I can realistically afford which at the moment is just over a third of my take home pay so all my other creditors would ever see is an increase in my repayments to them!

I will of course be running everything past SC first anyway, if they say "no don't even think of it or you'll jeopardise your DMP with us" and I'm not at a stage where I feel confident in going self managed then I'll not make the payment and just add the extra to my emergency fund "for a rainy day"

Tintingirl, the only reduction would be the amount which I would normally pay to the creditor receiving the F&F but then that creditors balance would be zeroed out so the amount I paid that month would be distributed equally as per any other month to my remaining creditors if that makes sense?

Thanks again,

MB

Stewart_78

I would change your amount and start saving the rest. Go for £50 off though, not 20. Just say your bills have gone up or whatever. Then when you have the £250, pay it off and just tell SC that it was offered to you and a relative kindly offered to pay it for you as long as it cleared the debt in full. Easy. Then keep saving the £50 to go towards the next F+F.

In fact if I was you I would change my payment to £100 p/m and save the £400 to make blanket offers, starting at 20% once you have enough and see who bites. My DMP is for 35k and Payplan said that £1 token payments was fine if that's all I can afford. If I do get any money in, I won't be increasing the payments, just saving it up for final offers which should be more possible with such a low monthly payment. Dishonest? Maybe but these are banks we are talking about. All I have to do is recall the time they rate-jacked me to 33% on all my cards and nearly cost me my business.

Monkeyballs

Stewart_78 wrote: »

I would change your amount and start saving the rest. Go for £50 off though, not 20. Just say your bills have gone up or whatever. Then when you have the £250, pay it off and just tell SC that it was offered to you and a relative kindly offered to pay it for you as long as it cleared the debt in full. Easy. Then keep saving the £50 to go towards the next F+F.

In fact if I was you I would change my payment to £100 p/m and save the £400 to make blanket offers, starting at 20% once you have enough and see who bites. My DMP is for 35k and Payplan said that £1 token payments was fine if that's all I can afford. If I do get any money in, I won't be increasing the payments, just saving it up for final offers which should be more possible with such a low monthly payment. Dishonest? Maybe but these are banks we are talking about. All I have to do is recall the time they rate-jacked me to 33% on all my cards and nearly cost me my business.

Hi Stewart,

Thanks for the suggestion but I don't think I could do that just because I wouldn't feel right about it - I'm not looking to avoid paying off what I owe or dragging it out to see who gives me a reduction just "tweak" a one off payment to take advantage of an offer being made which one of my creditors is willing to accept which is agreeable to both parties (I.e. me and the creditor).

What I was thinking was if I paid £480 one month to be distributed among my creditors (excluding Wonga) then they would all get their normal agreed payment.

The other £20 held back would then still be going to Wonga (only from me not SC) along with the other £230 to make up the £250 F&F offer.

The following month I would go back to paying the full £500 and my creditors would then have an additional £20 pcm going forward shared among them.

MB