Advice needed

Julie_H_2

Hi I am new to the forum, and feeling very stressed at the moment. I am on a DMP and I have been paying £132 per month to Lloyds since January this year. Lloyds have been adding £120 interest per month leaving only £12 paid of the debt. I phoned collections this week to ask if they could stop the interest and the man said did I want to pass it to debt recovery. To be honest I could hardly understand all he was saying. I said yes and he said my new payment date was the 2nd of the month and to wait to hear from the debt recovery and also I would receive a letter each month from I think he said their solicitors but I was to ignore them and just file them away.. I have been very worried and stressed and feel ill, as now I am wondering should I of left well alone and left it in collections.
What happens now it has gone to debt recovery?
Will I continue to pay Lloyds through my debt management company as before.
I don't want all the hassle to begin again that I had in the beginning from Lloyds phoning me all the time and sending letters.
Any advice to set my mind at ease would be much appreciated and thank you in advance
Julie

jmhgibson123

its usually better to go to collections or debt recovery they tend to stop the intrest, i did have the same issue with lloyds and after repeated letters begging them to stop charging intrest they finally did...then sold the debt on so it will work out in the end albeit you pay a lot more in interest

Neil_948

It would depend on when it is passed to debt recovery dept as until the account leaves Lloyds then they will add interest on every month

Julie_H_2

Thanks for your replies

The man on the phone said if I sent it to debt recovery the interest would stop, is this correct?
It was in collections now being passed to debt recovery I think it's their internal one, I have missed no payments while in collections.

Time_to_face_the_music

Julie_H wrote: »

Hi I am new to the forum, and feeling very stressed at the moment. I am on a DMP and I have been paying £132 per month to Lloyds since January this year. Lloyds have been adding £120 interest per month leaving only £12 paid of the debt. I phoned collections this week to ask if they could stop the interest and the man said did I want to pass it to debt recovery. To be honest I could hardly understand all he was saying. I said yes and he said my new payment date was the 2nd of the month and to wait to hear from the debt recovery and also I would receive a letter each month from I think he said their solicitors but I was to ignore them and just file them away.. I have been very worried and stressed and feel ill, as now I am wondering should I of left well alone and left it in collections.
What happens now it has gone to debt recovery?
Will I continue to pay Lloyds through my debt management company as before.
I don't want all the hassle to begin again that I had in the beginning from Lloyds phoning me all the time and sending letters.
Any advice to set my mind at ease would be much appreciated and thank you in advance
Julie

Hi Julie and welcome :hello:

I had a very similar issue with Lloyds and they would not default a debt until I actually asked them to do. They still tried to dissuade me but did it in the end. The debt originally went to an in-house collections department and a couple of months later to Cabot. Cabot wrote and phoned me, giving the new details for payment arrangements. Some people have real problems with DCAs but I have to say Cabot were incredibly easy to deal with and much better than Lloyds!

Make sure you ask Lloyds to refund the interest that they have already charged you since the start of your DMP. If they don't, you can fight this via the FOS but after a bit of fuss, Lloyds generally will do it themselves.

Are you with a free DMP provider or are you paying for the service?

If you need any more help, advice or support, please come and join us on the DMP & Mutual Support thread, we would love to welcome you there

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/4437925

TTFTM x

sourcrates

Hi Julie, and welcome,
Lots of people are having this problem at the moment, have advised on a few posts in the last couple of days, it seems to stem from people entering DMP`s before they have actually defaulted there accounts, lenders treat you as though you have just missed some payments and continue with interest and charges as per normal, you shouldn't really enter a DMP until you have defaulted your account for at least 6 months, by that time the account is either with debt recovery or a DCA, so interest, charges etc are stopped, and you can negotiate with the DCA, that is how a DMP is supposed to work, problems arise when people think there doing the right thing, but enter a DMP too early, so interest is not stopped, unless you complain like hell to them.

Julie_H_2

Thank you for your replies. I am with a free DMP provider, my husband lost his job last October and we didn't have enough money coming in to pay the loan back. We contacted Lloyds and they told me to contact step change which I did. We paid £10 per month while waiting for the DMP to be put in place. Lloyds collections constantly phoned me, and I found myself repeating myself over and over again and told them step change had sent a proposal which Lloyds said they hadn't received and step change had to resend it.
Eventually they agreed to the proposal of £132.51 per month and I felt so relieved, only to realise they were adding interest of £120 per month.

Collections have now passed it to debt recovery after I asked them if they could stop the interest and closed the account, told me to wait for a phone call or letter. Now I have got myself really stressed over it all, and feel like the debt will never be
repaid. The waiting is the worse all I want is regular payments to be made and interest stopped.
What happens when I hear from debt recovery? Do payments just
continue as before and interest stopped now that it isn't with collections?
Sorry I am rambling but I am so stressed with it I have no one I can talk to as I don't like to worry my husband as he has a heart condition and I don't want to stress him.

sourcrates

Julie_H wrote: »

Collections have now passed it to debt recovery after I asked them if they could stop the interest and closed the account, told me to wait for a phone call or letter. Now I have got myself really stressed over it all, and feel like the debt will never be
repaid. The waiting is the worse all I want is regular payments to be made and interest stopped.
What happens when I hear from debt recovery? Do payments just
continue as before and interest stopped now that it isn't with collections?
Sorry I am rambling but I am so stressed with it I have no one I can talk to as I don't like to worry my husband as he has a heart condition and I don't want to stress him.

Ok, firstly, stop panicking, its just not worth it, they are only letters and calls, ignore them, block there number on your phone, and forget about them, its simply not worth getting stressed out over, in your position, if its causing you that much hassle, I would just forget about them, in a few months they will have sold the debt on to a DCA, you will find they will be much more amenable to a payment arrangement, sometimes you just need to take control of a situation, instead of letting them control you, get on with your life.
One more thing, never, ever speak to collections on the phone, this is why your so stressed out, they can and do say anything to get you to pay, always communicate in writing, much better as you have a record of whats been said, and you get no stress this way.

Julie_H_2

You are right I need to get on with life and stop worrying. I did write to Lloyds at hove asking is they could stop the interest I explained I was a DMP with step change and Lloyds collections had accepted the proposal. Lloyds wrote back saying they couldn't help until I sent them a list of my outgoings or contact step change or cab they mentioned some other places. This didn't answer my letter at all so I phoned collections to ask them and as I have mentioned they asked if I wanted to be passed to debt recovery ect ect I even mentioned the ombudsman in my letter and still got no where.

They obviously didn't read the letter or were just fobbing me of.

sourcrates

The usual course of events would see them sell on or assign a debt that's is not been paid, a DCA would accept a reasonable payment you could afford, and there would not be any charges or interest, sometimes if your not getting anywere, its best to leave well alone for a while and things will sort themselves naturally.