DMP & Mutual Support Thread - Part 10

Brogden

Mo,

I believe Mercer's to be a name Barclay's uses to frighten people - its just a front - the other banks do the same but most have stopped doing this following the Wonga story in the news this year. I'll bet Barclay's have stopped this too now and I'll bet you don't hear again from Mercer's again!

Whilst the debt is still with the bank, it is easy to believe that interest is still being charged and whilst you may have received a default notice, the account may be live. If you have entered a DMP through SC I would have expected that Barclay's should by now have stopped interest and the fact they haven't is probably just down to oversight/delay.

If you don't want to ring them then write to them to point this out. Advise them that Step Change are acting for you, quote your number and ask for confirmation that interest will not be charged going forward.

They will stop! I think they should have done already!

Brogden.

Brogden

I had a defaulted account with HBOS (Sainsbury's) and my PPI complaint was upheld. My compensation was paid directly to me and they said they would need my permission if it were to be used to pay off my debt to them.

I paid off other even more irritating debt with it!!

Brogden

sunnyskies2

Mojo13 wrote: »

Hi All,

Lovely to her some of the positive stories, I am looking for a bit of help, Barclaycard (one of three I have) are now charging interest on the debt which is pushing the balance up by over £100 a month, I have spoken to SC and they have sent them my paperwork a couple of times but still the are charging, previously for the first few months they stopped it, is there anything I can do, I really can't face ringing them so was thinking of trying a letter, is that what most people would do.

Feeling low today, thought I was going alright, thanks for listening.

Mo

Hi Mo

Lloyds continued to charge me interest despite being told I was entering into a DMP. I used this letter template (thank you ttftm) and they, to date, have refunded and stopped interest and initiated Default notices.

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showpost.php?p=62784742&postcount=2285

Hope you're feeling a little better

Sarah x

Time_to_face_the_music

Good morning all DMPers and welcome to the newbies :hello:

In my personal experience, I was much better at getting interest stopped than Stepchange (then CCCS) ever were and this played a major part in our decision to go self managed.

For anyone starting a DMP or already in a DMP and still being charged interest, you really should write to each creditor and make a complaint using a letter similar to the template sunnyskies has linked to above. You need to use the word complaint and you should say you will follow up with the FOS if interest/fees/charges are not stopped.

Not all creditors will stop interest but you need to make the best effort you can to achieve this, please get involved in this and don't expect it to be done for you. You need to remember that while Stepchange or Payplan may be distributing your money to your creditors, it is still your debt and you need to be in control of what is going on. Work to get interest stopped, keep your balances up to date, don't ever forget that your online account does not include any interest being charged so you may need to update it for a realistic balance.

What happens if you can't get interest stopped? Do everything you can via complaints and the FOS and if that does not work, it's worth considering self managing your DMP and playing hard ball with your creditors. I found it amazing how much a few months of £1 token payments helped to get Lloyds TSB to play nicely

If you need a letter for anything, ask here or try the National Debtline website:

https://www.nationaldebtline.org/EW/sampleletters/Pages/default.aspx

Never forget that whatever your problem, someone on this thread will always try to help you, we all know how you feel because we have been there too.

TTFTM x

Sazzie23

Hi all

Just a quick word about Barclaycard, for most (although some manage to lose the interest completely) BC calcualte the interest depending on the amount of the minimum payment you are making, they appear to review this regularly and as you get closer to meeting the minimum repayment, the interest goes up ! Great huh !!

Sazzie23

JoJoB wrote: »

Hi, could I have some help with putting a budget together for DMP annual review please? Our expenses and income have changed quite a bit but I'm not sure how much they will allow for certain expenses (our public transport bill is a hefty £720 a month!).

We are 2 adults and 1 child. The following on the left hand side is the payplan budget from 4 years ago, on the right hand side I have put in the revised actual figures. I know the transport is going to be an issue, so it may have to be hidden in other "expenses". Anyone know if there are other categories of expenses I could claim for? There seems to be no allowances for holidays or christmas presents for example - do payplan expect this to go into the "others" category?

I also don't know if we can claim more on the Household expenses - any idea?

Thanks for help!

Mortgage £0.00 £400 (inc maintenance charge and buildings ins)
Contents insurance £14.53
Council Tax £99.00
Electricity £45.00 £120 (increase of £75)
Water Rates £18.97 £24 (increase of £5)
TV Licence £11.95
Life Insurance - Joint £9.50 £22 (increase of £12)
Home phone £33.00 £50 (increase of £17 - inc mobiles)
Public Transport £200.00 £720 (increase of £520 - £170 per week train plus £40 per month school bus fare)
Housekeeping £397.00
Clothing / Footwear £20.00 £100 (increase of £80)
Health (dental, optical, prescriptions etc) £25.00 £85 (increase of £60 - inc dental work, inhalers, contacts and gym)
Hairdressing/Haircuts £8.00 £24 (increase of £16)
Memberships Professional Subs £8.62 £20 (increase of £11)
Other £50.00 £293 (increase of £243 inc student loan of £150 and prof development course of £93 )
Budget Overview
Total Income: £1,443.67 £2,400 (increase of £1000)

Hi Jojo

Presumably yours is a long DMP? I can see why you might want to add more categories & as Zerdi has supplied the SC budget I hope that gives you some ideas. Are you worried about the amount of increases, I'm assuming there are some logical reasons, like why there was no mortgage and now its £400, and how the public transport costs are so high compared to previously. IS it the first review in 4 years?

I do wonder though about how cost effective that very high travel cost is..does the high travel cost generate more income..in which case its probably justified? I'm guessing its an investment to generate more income in the long-term, again if you have good justification then I'd hope that creditors would be Ok with it.

Not sure what housekeeping includes, SC have a debt remedy which you can do on-line and it has suggested amounts, you don't have to use them and it can be done anonymously, maybe this would help a bit with some of the actual figures.

Holidays and presents are considered luxuries and therefore not really allowed in the budget, some DMPers are creative with smoking allowances etc to try to raise a few ££ for these things but if you are having to make creative accounting work to cover essentials like work travel then that reduces options.

Have your dmp payments changed much compared to now, maybe if the overall payments don't change much creditors won't look too hard? Anyone been in this situation that could help JoJo?

Sazzie23

Brogden wrote: »

Smiff said:- I started to email creditors today. I'm getting account numbers sorted to send off as well to SC although SC said I may need to ring PDL to get their account numbers. Not looking forward to that! They have been trying to lift money but I emptied the account and have a nice clean one set up and have arranged my pay to go into it next month.

Smiff - I have been through exactly the same thing and well done on getting your new bank account sorted out.

Just one thing......you mention emails to your creditors. Fine but do not mention any account names and numbers in those. Not just to PDL's but not to 'respectable' banks either. There is a 'security revolution' going on and maybe for good reason. Stuff is intercepted on the internet. I am concerned that you may not get meaningful responses by email due to the security procedures of the firms you are contacting. In all honesty, I would use the telephone and go through ID and security. I've been there. At first its tough......after a few its easy!!!!

All the best,

Brogden

Good points - Probably Ok though if you use the on-site messaging services I think they are reasonably secure. I think the advantage of calling creditors yourself is that you can choose a convenient time rather than them calling you when its not

Time_to_face_the_music

Sazzie23 wrote: »

Hi all

Just a quick word about Barclaycard, for most (although some manage to lose the interest completely) BC calcualte the interest depending on the amount of the minimum payment you are making, they appear to review this regularly and as you get closer to meeting the minimum repayment, the interest goes up ! Great huh !!

Another reason to go self managed, especially with Stepchange's method of calculating the distribution of payments.

We were above minimum payment with M&S so they would not stop interest, they actually told us they would stop if we reduced their payment but CCCS, as they were then, said they could not do that. The FOS said they were really sorry but had to decline our claim as M&S had offered us a solution. Catch 22 so exit DMP and self manage was only solution. I have never regretted it for one minute and am only sorry it took me so long to see the light ..... a bit like my LBM

TTFTM x

kb_soma

TTFTM,

How would I go about self managing my DMP?

Time_to_face_the_music

I did it using the NED CAB DMP website:

https://nedcab.cabmoney.org.uk/dmp.asp

I asked Stepchange for a list of all of our creditors contact details, then prepared a I&E using the CAB's templates and sent it out to all of our creditors. Most didn't bother replying so we just started paying them and no-one complained or seemed interested that their payments were different to previously.

Looking at the website now, it seems even easier as there is an option to transfer over from an existing DMP, so would assume this would include a Stepchange DMP.

it won't be applicable to everyone as it depends when you get paid but changing to self managed also immediately put us a full month ahead with our DMP.

TTFTM x