DMP & Mutual Support Thread - Part 10

lewpster

MBNA were as good as gold with me. No defaults yet(have had the letter warning of them) - started SC in November but they have charged me 0% interest and I owe them about 45% of my balance across 2 cards.

Sazzie23

I also have 2 accounts with MBNA one was sold to a DcA after 12 months, no interest ever charged, the other I pay minimal interest, which I'll live with.

They are certainly one of the best to communicate with too

System

Sounding good for MBNA then....just hope B/Card, Halifax, Tesco and Lloyds are as good.

January2015

Definitely sounds positive with MBNA - we have 3 accounts with them (aka Virginmoney) which total about £36k. However as our DMP is forecast to be over almost 10 years I suspect they will sell to a DCA before too long.

The rest of ours are with Halif@x, B/card, NWest and RBS. Will have to hope they are all reasonable with interest once DMP in place. To be fair they have all been really good since we told them we are working with SC. Hopefully it will last, but somehow I think there may be a few bumps and hiccups along the way

Scaredofdebt_2

HI, I am new to the forum and am just in the process of setting up a dmp with StepChange and have read this with interest. My hubby and I have £57000 worth of debt and I am scared to death. Need to start contacting our creditors but am dreading it - have you come up against too many problems and have they been ringing you lots? We have cards with MBNA, barclaycard, Halifax and Natwest.
xx

System

Scaredofdebt wrote: »

HI, I am new to the forum and am just in the process of setting up a dmp with StepChange and have read this with interest. My hubby and I have £57000 worth of debt and I am scared to death. Need to start contacting our creditors but am dreading it - have you come up against too many problems and have they been ringing you lots? We have cards with MBNA, barclaycard, Halifax Halifax and Natwest.
xx

Hi and welcome, I am also new, having only had the lighbulb moment a couple of weeks ago and still in the process of setting up our DMP with SC. As you can see from my signature, our debt is similar to yours. I was terrified when we first decided to go through with this, but now I feel so much better and it is such a relief to know we are going to one day be free from this millstone around our necks.
We also have cards with MBNA, BC and Halifax, as well as Lloyds, Tesco, Debenhams store card and a Lloyds loan and overdraft. We were bascially robbing Peter to pay Paul every month and the interest was mounting up.
So far everything is going smoothly and we have sent off the standard letter as advised on this thread...if you search through you will find a link to it and in the letter it asks that all communication is in writing only. So far we have had no phone calls and if we do I will politely point out that we are now with SC and ask them to contact them.
There is so much information on here and there is always someone with the right answers, so you will feel at home straight away, I know I did....I feel like an old timer already and only been subscribed to the thread a short while.

Scaredofdebt_2

Thank you. It's very reassuring to know there are people out there in the same situation. We have built our debt up the same way as you and can't believe we have let it get this bad. Really have been beating myself up over it and have had extreme anxiety but know I need to start the journey now. I am so sick of being in debt. I will have a look at the letters. SC advised me to phone them but would prefer to write. Good luck and here's to becoming debt free.

January2015

Scaredofdebt wrote: »

Thank you. It's very reassuring to know there are people out there in the same situation. We have built our debt up the same way as you and can't believe we have let it get this bad. Really have been beating myself up over it and have had extreme anxiety but know I need to start the journey now. I am so sick of being in debt. I will have a look at the letters. SC advised me to phone them but would prefer to write. Good luck and here's to becoming debt free.

Definitely others in the same situation as you - I am also at the beginning of our debt free journey and am just going through the motions of setting up our DMP with StepChange. I contacted all our creditors through the online secure message system for each of our credit cards. I just copied and pasted the wording from the letters on here which advise we are in financial difficulties and working with Stepchange. They have all accepted notification through this method (saved on time and stamps;)) and have all implemented a 30 day no contact period whilst StepChange set up the DMP.

I also agree with Ploppy - I have only been on this forum since the beginning of January and it already feels like a second home and I feel like a much welcomed friend and 'regular' already. It is also so inspiring and just makes me more determined to succeed in our goals.

Looking forward to getting to know you and follow your journey to becoming debt free:beer:

james_joyce

Hi All

So I had my LBM after Xmas, realised I needed a DMP.

I went online and filled in some initial info on the StepChange website. That gave me a useful guide for my monthly budget, max amounts for each category etc.

Then I drew up a list of all my creditors, pro-rata'd the amounts I could pay each month, and put these figures and my income and expenses into a SOA based on templates I saw online.

Finally I sent the SOA to all my creditors - with an accompanying letter, again based on online templates.

Have I made a terrible mistake? Should I try to pay the full minimum payments this time, take time out and speak to a charity like StepChange? Or just go ahead with my calculated pro rota payments this month and see what happens? I'm worried my payments are too low, they would take 25 years to pay off in full! But then again people do these £1 a month nominal payments don't they? Are they always arranged via third parties like StepChange rather than bumbling freelancers like me?

Many thanks
James

james_joyce

Can I just ask a quick question? My wife and I are in the process of moving current accounts, from a bank with which I have a credit card debt. Our current account balance is zero but the next child benefit payment might still go into it. Can the bank seize that money towards my credit debt before my wife has chance to transfer the money into her new account? She has no debts at all. The child benefit is her money and I've just got this wonderful image of our suing the bank and getting a CCJ against them.