DMP & Mutual Support Thread - Part 10

Time_to_face_the_music

Iwanttobefree wrote: »

Hi all

I have decided to run my own DMP as of today.

While I get my head around it all, I am paying them what Step change was going to be paying them except for my Creation accounts where I am stopping payments until they pass it over to a debt collector as the interest will mean I am still paying it off in 30 years time.

Brogden wrote: »

I have never had any dealings with Creation but have read a few posts where people are saying they are difficult. Having said that people have had difficulty through Step Change with creditors who stopped interest for me immediately - I am self managed and I will talk on the phone!

Forgive my asking but have you really tried to get Creation to stop interest? If I may make a suggestion......put Creation on token payments..........£1.00 a month sounds reasonable and tell them what you are doing and why. To stop payments altogether could be dangerous as we can't assume all defaulted debts will end up with debt collectors and we wouldn't want legal proceedings. I do believe that those people who end up in court are those who pay nothing and don't communicate either

Well done on coming to the decision you have but keep something being paid to everyone every month. It really isn't worth taking the chance.

All the best,

Brogden.

I agree with Brogden, £1 token payments is the way to go. When we left Stepchange and went self managed, 3 months token payments to each creditor still charging interest worked wonders

Hi and welcome to flowerpotter :hello:

TTFTM x

Iwanttobefree

Many thanks for your advice.

I was basing that decision on the following posts.


http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showpost.php?p=66310806&postcount=7

To be fair, I would stop paying all your debts, and allow all the accounts to be sold on as this again, would give you a few more months to formulate a plan, and DCA`s are a lot more amenable to payment plans, and all the interest would stop

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/newreply.php?do=newreply&p=66314235

. Debt Collection Agencies DO NOT add interest and charges on to the outstanding balance. They will buy the debt at a fraction of the price, hence why you see them offering "reduced settlement offers", because even though they're knocking £1000 off the balance, for example, they'd still be making a profit from your full and final settlement amount.

This is why it's not necessarily a bad thing if a DCA takes over a debt from a creditor who is still adding interest and charges on.

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showpost.php?p=66556957&postcount=8

I find the best way out of this situation is to stop paying completely, I liken this to the payday loan spiral lots of people find them selves in, you end up more in debt because of creditor interest, at some point you just have to say NO, and re-take control of the matter.


Most people are aware of the debt collection process :


original creditor-collections-assigned DCA-debt gets sold.


Most court actions take place at the end of the process, if ever, once a debt is sold on, all interest and charges usually stop, if a creditor is not willing to stop interest, no amount of complaining will budge them.

At least when it ends up with a new owner, there will be no further interest.

Remember a DCA has no more legal power than you or I have.

I'm a little confused to be honest.

If I'm paying a token payment of £1 a month (3 accounts) what's stopping creation doing nothing for 12 months each month my overall debt increasing by a few £100?

Hence I soon find myself a few more thousand in debt.

Whereas, if I paid nothing, as they were receiving zero payment a month, I would have thought they would have sold it on quicker?

or am I (most likely) completely misunderstanding how it works?

I don't really care if we get ccj's as I never want credit ever again

This is relating to 3 credit cards one in my name, two in my wifes.

Puzzcat

Creation are my only interest charging creditor but I wrote and complained, they stayed firm so I took it to the fos who got the interest down from £30 a month to £10.
Puzz.x

Kate_fixing_it

Hi all, I'm back from my jaunt in the North West

Liverpool uni was amazing! Both teens want to go there now! Had a fabulous day at the open day and sightseeing after. Journey home was a bit of a struggle with LOTS of drunk people and both trains delayed but we loved it. Really paying for the physical exertion today but still managed to catch up on housework which means fresh bed tonight (Is there anything better? )

Financially it was a success too. Travel was paid for in advance and I'd set a cash budget for the day out for the 3 of us which we stuck to (even though the kids didn't know there was one ) and I have enough left to cover hospital parking tomorrow too.

All in all a MUCH better experience than my trip out sightseeing last October a week after my LBM when I was a wreck.

Going to be some serious words with HSBC this week, 9 days and still waiting for my 3 day call back. No money yet either. No idea what's going on with the entry on my credit file either. They really are useless!

I wasn't here for the default day post but picked it up this morning and Barclaycard has dropped into the 1100s on the statement, don't recall seeing last month's so this might be old news but it's all dropping...and faster than I expected. As soon as I have that PPI it'll be heading into freefall!

Welcome to all the new people. MB is absolutely spot on about this thread. We're all in this together no matter what you owe or how it happened doesn't matter here. What matters is supporting each other to the finish line. Right now it's all very chaotic for those just starting out but by Christmas things will be on an even keel and you'll be able to live again. Life is never quite the same...It's better! I promise! So grab yourself a cuppa and take a seat at our table. We've all had the lows and now we can all start celebrating the highs together.

Kate x

Kate_fixing_it

Puzzcat wrote: »

Creation are my only interest charging creditor but I wrote and complained, they stayed firm so I took it to the fos who got the interest down from £30 a month to £10.
Puzz.x

I'm still fighting the sods! SC pay them 28.81, they charge 27.67 interest :mad: it's been 5 months so far. They will NOT beat me though I will make sure everyone I know is aware of their actions and avoids them!

Absolutely disgusting attitude to their customers in trouble and why on earth they gave me a credit limit that's 15% of my annual salary with a debt total of over 50% already in place is beyond me! Take a look in the dictionary under deluded and you'll see my 2013 face

Kate x

Iwanttobefree

Puzzcat wrote: »

Creation are my only interest charging creditor but I wrote and complained, they stayed firm so I took it to the fos who got the interest down from £30 a month to £10.
Puzz.x

Yep, the problem is I've been through the same process, they did reduce the payment to 3% apr for 12 months, but this was based on the amount I offered to repay them. And them not upholding my complaint.

Two months later I had to reduce the amount and while they accepted the new amount, they started the whole process again.

Meaning I now have to contact the Fos again, I get the interest from Creation while this goes through (last time it took 4 months on one account)

So by December / January they will have reduced the interest again, but what if I need to make a token payment one month, or change my repayment amounts, then I have to start the whole thing again and they are the only company behaving like this, which is why part of me wishes they would pass it over to a debt collector.

I think I might write a full explanation of my experience to the Fos and see what they say. because I don't want this to keep happening every few months.

Iwanttobefree

Kate_fixing_it wrote: »

d why on earth they gave me a credit limit that's 15% of my annual salary with a debt total of over 50% already in place is beyond me! Take a look in the dictionary under deluded and you'll see my 2013 face

Kate x

To quote ,my other post in the main debt forum today

On a separate note, I am not trying to get out of paying, we borrowed the money, we need to pay it back.

But I would strongly argue that while we did ask for it (although each time it was only one of us, who was suffering depression at the time and not thinking straight), they should not have allowed us to borrow the money at all.

My wife had an account for a couple of years, always up to the limit, always making just the minimum payment. While I was depressed, trying to sort out our finances a while back, I tried to get 0% balance transfers for our other credit cards, no one would give us them. I tried creation thinking it would be a complete waste of time as she already had one up to the limit.

I applied for one in my name, putting my correct income of under £5k a year and other household income as my wife's earnings and child benefit etc. I simply entered a few things on a web form, clicked a few things and that was it, accepted. I then did the same thing straight away in my wifes name and again got accepted.

A week odd later 2 cards drop through the letterbox with about 5K credit on each.

And you've probably hear this 1000 times, we thought "this time we will be careful", we transferred balances but put the other cards away just for emergencies.

At the time of applying for these cards we had Capital one cards maxed out, Barclays maxed out, a 10K credit limit with Littlewoods etc etc etc and my wife earns under £20k a year.

I'm not trying to make excuses, I am simply saying that reading through this forum, seeing the many many other people going through exactly what I'm going through, the ease of getting credit is simply wrong in my opinion,.

There are not enough checks in place, when a balance transfer is done there is nothing to check you have closed the other account etc.

At one point we couldn't pay bills and my wife phoned up Creation out of desperation and asked if they could up her limit, We were already maxed out in ALL our cards. They still upped it by £1000.

We now owe that one company £19356

I appreciate there are many people out there that can manage finances sensibly, I and my wife do not fall into this category and when my health is bad, I need protecting from myself, and if it wasn't this easy, I wouldn't be on this thread right now.

Brogden

Iwanttobefree wrote: »

Many thanks for your advice.

I was basing that decision on the following posts.


http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showpost.php?p=66310806&postcount=7



http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/newreply.php?do=newreply&p=66314235



http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showpost.php?p=66556957&postcount=8



I'm a little confused to be honest.

If I'm paying a token payment of £1 a month (3 accounts) what's stopping creation doing nothing for 12 months each month my overall debt increasing by a few £100?

Hence I soon find myself a few more thousand in debt.

Whereas, if I paid nothing, as they were receiving zero payment a month, I would have thought they would have sold it on quicker?

or am I (most likely) completely misunderstanding how it works?

I don't really care if we get ccj's as I never want credit ever again

This is relating to 3 credit cards one in my name, two in my wifes.

The problem is they might not sell it on......who knows? Pay them £1.00 a month on each account and tell them the reason is because they are charging interest at a huge rate and that you are (presumably) struggling and are entering a DMP and ask them to freeze interest. Any money that you save you should put in an account to offer a F&F when you can. A DMP doesn't have to be with Step Change......if you are saying 'no more' and fixing your payment to them - an amount that you can afford then that's a DMP . That's what I did......a long way to go but its honest and its working.

Brogden.

Brogden

Brogden wrote: »

The problem is they might not sell it on......who knows? Pay them £1.00 a month on each account and tell them the reason is because they are charging interest at a huge rate and that you are (presumably) struggling and are entering a DMP and ask them to freeze interest. Any money that you save you should put in an account to offer a F&F when you can. A DMP doesn't have to be with Step Change......if you are saying 'no more' and fixing your payment to them - an amount that you can afford then that's a DMP . That's what I did......a long way to go but its honest and its working.

Brogden.

Complain to Creation. If the response to the complaint is not acceptable to you and is their final response then approach the FOS.

Brogden

Puzzcat

Creation were my last cc applied for, at that point I had in excess of £40k cc debt and a loan/of of £10k + on a £30k salary. I chose to apply and accept and I will repay but on my terms now. I agree the generous giving of credit was the downfall for most of us, but now we just want to pay it back at an acceptable rate. By trying to keep your payments regular would eliminate the need for the creditor to keep upping the interest so maybe this is where you need to do some work on and ensure that you can maintain the payments you are offering. I have had no trouble from them since complaining to the fos, but the fos did say to come back if I did. By not paying I'm not sure you won't be encouraging more problems than you need. Wishing you well whatever route you take.