DMP & Mutual Support Thread - Part 10

neiljmuk

Puzzcat wrote: »

Hi Neil,


I think in the early stages of setting up a dmp we all just want the creditors to play nice and freeze interest/default us.
However as you have found it doesn't always go to plan. It may be better to focus on the positives you have achieved so far, whilst still doing battle with the negatives.
Your plan to go self managed is probably the best for you and I would let the plan run for a little while and let the creditors settle into a routine first.
The main point I am trying to make is we are all treated differently by creditors, some of it will be down to debt payment v original minimum payment, some may be down to recent usage of a cc or a new loan or cc that was taken out not long before a dmp was set up, previous history of payments etc.. Its all a guessing game and I'm sure your plan will sort itself out in time.
Puzz. x

Thank you. My train of though is aligned with your advice so that is reassuring! I will battle Lloyds for the duration of the 6 months they have set out their acceptance of payments for and focus on the positives.

I still think the Lloyds loan debt, which will then be approximately £1000 higher then will push the SC payment amount to just under 1% of that new debt and then be low enough for them to see what is happening and that I cannot change my payment amount allowing them then to play ball (not a low as Lloyds and their free cheeky 1k). If not, I will have everything in place to trigger self management and just bung it down some and save up the difference.

One way or another, we are pretty much in control. Less rushing on my part. Will see this right. Thanks again.

neiljmuk

MOT just passed. A day of contrasting fortunes.... I'll take that! Can't really argue with a car garage until the freeze car maintenance charges can you lol!

blisteringblue

neiljmuk wrote: »

Learning the self managed ropes on NEDC CAB site and will write to creditors asking them to accept the exact same payment from me, just paid by me, not SC to keep them happy, then drob a bomb on Lloyds and give em a fiver a month to get it straight to recovery for a new plant to be agreed.

I feel for you, we've only 2 accounts still charging interest and it works out around £30 a month. It used to be £800 a month just in interest so at the moment I'm not rocking the boat. Knocking off close to 2% every month at that.

I think self managed will be OK once you get into the swing of it. I was half expecting it myself after my review but managed to tweak my figures to almost retain the same DMP payment.

But I wouldn't even send them a fiver, I'd £1 them until they play ball. It is great how quickly we all wise up to this.

neiljmuk

blisteringblue wrote: »

I feel for you, we've only 2 accounts still charging interest and it works out around £30 a month. It used to be £800 a month just in interest so at the moment I'm not rocking the boat. Knocking off close to 2% every month at that.

I think self managed will be OK once you get into the swing of it. I was half expecting it myself after my review but managed to tweak my figures to almost retain the same DMP payment.

But I wouldn't even send them a fiver, I'd £1 them until they play ball. It is great how quickly we all wise up to this.

Nice one. My figures with Lloyds playing ball would be £400 to SC, £15 interest. With Lloyds being Lloyds (although they played ball with the OD and CC) its going to be £400 to SC with about £185 interest. The interest will of course snowball but only by about 50p, each month to start with a it was only going up £2 a month with token payments.

Before the DMP I could reduce debt by about £250 a month as opposed to £215 but was paying over £800 such was the interest and standard minimum payments so it's going the right way as I can live a little NOW.

As I said, I think the increased amount owed in a few months time and refusal to pay more after the 6 months review will be a tipping point that results in getting what I want with the current payment, or going self managed. I'm going to have to play Barclaycard continually as my SC payments catch up with the regular minimum payments so but a couple of years on SC to kill 30% of the debt and get it below the £25k mark would be nice.

Time_to_face_the_music

neiljmuk wrote: »

Hi, I know its personal information but what % of original payment / debt are you paying on your loan now via SC? No worries if you don't want to say.

A 55 minute call to collections and complaints, yes 55 minutes (on a mobile) and the utter parasites are point blank refusing to drop the interest unless SC contact them with a lower payment! Spoke to the robotic eejit on 1st line, then the floor manager, then some scum bag in complaints. Refusing to pass to recovery...

I've told them to put on file that I'm stopping the SC payments and hung up..

There is no way SC will call them and they know that so they are all lieing to me. They said SC have not asked to freeze interest. More lies!

Any advice appreciated. I know SC won't reduce payments and generally can't be bothered to do anything except make the payment.

All other creditors have accepted the plan or I'd just lower the whole single payment but might just get the same advice....

Any advice. I need to calm down of I'm walking in to a branch of Lloyds round the corner and the lots going to go up! :mad::mad::mad::mad:

Puzzcat wrote: »

Hi,
Have you written to them complaining about the interest? If not that is your first step then you can complain to the fos.. You may or may not be successful because, as you know they do not have to freeze interest. The only other option is to go self managed ultimately.
Puzz.x

The problem with this scenario and the FOS is that a solution has been offered and so they usually won't take on the case. This happened to us with M&S, they told us they would not stop interest unless we dropped the payment, Stepchange (then CCCS) refused to treat one creditor differently and the FOS said no to the complaint because we had the option. In the end we went self managed and sorted it out.

I'm sorry because I know some people don't like to see them criticised but I think a lot of these problems are down to the way that Stepchange calculate payment distribution to creditors. We had two debts with very similar total amounts owed yet one payment was almost double the other. This immediately became a problem as it was above minimum payment so the creditor saw us as not being in financial difficulty. No-one else calculates creditor payments this way, so why do Stepchange do it? I have asked this question several times previously, both here and on their own thread, and never got a satisfactory answer.

When we changed to self managed and used the standard method of calculating creditor payments i.e. ratio of amount owed, we were really worried that they payments were so different and it would cause a real problem. We used the NED CAB I&E and payment calculation forms and not one creditor made a fuss.

I know self managed isn't for everyone but if you can keep a spreadsheet and are happy making several payments per month instead of one, you really can't go wrong.

TTFTM x

neiljmuk

Time_to_face_the_music wrote: »

The problem with this scenario and the FOS is that a solution has been offered and so they usually won't take on the case. This happened to us with M&S, they told us they would not stop interest unless we dropped the payment, Stepchange (then CCCS) refused to treat one creditor differently and the FOS said no to the complaint because we had the option. In the end we went self managed and sorted it out.

I'm sorry because I know some people don't like to see them criticised but I think a lot of these problems are down to the way that Stepchange calculate payment distribution to creditors. We had two debts with very similar total amounts owed yet one payment was almost double the other. This immediately became a problem as it was above minimum payment so the creditor saw us as not being in financial difficulty. No-one else calculates creditor payments this way, so why do Stepchange do it? I have asked this question several times previously, both here and on their own thread, and never got a satisfactory answer.

When we changed to self managed and used the standard method of calculating creditor payments i.e. ratio of amount owed, we were really worried that they payments were so different and it would cause a real problem. We used the NED CAB I&E and payment calculation forms and not one creditor made a fuss.

I know self managed isn't for everyone but if you can keep a spreadsheet and are happy making several payments per month instead of one, you really can't go wrong.

TTFTM x

Thank you. Especially for setting my expectation re any likely outcome with FOS.

Did you get any creditors who had frozen interest and accepted the SC payments being funny with you when you went self managed? Re-applying interest or refusing, etc?

In terms of calculations I actually think the Lloyds loan has come off worse and am thus surprised it's too high. It sits above 1% of the debt though so betting that is a threshold. That seems ridiculous though but could do with finding out.

If I sent self managed I'd have to re-calulate based on who applies a little interest, then just ask if creditors would mind be breaking away from SC (after 6 months) first then just treat Lloyds with exclusive contempt.

Time_to_face_the_music

neiljmuk wrote: »

Thank you. Especially for setting my expectation re any likely outcome with FOS.

Did you get any creditors who had frozen interest and accepted the SC payments being funny with you when you went self managed? Re-applying interest or refusing, etc?

In terms of calculations I actually think the Lloyds loan has come off worse and am thus surprised it's too high. It sits above 1% of the debt though so betting that is a threshold. That seems ridiculous though but could do with finding out.

If I sent self managed I'd have to re-calulate based on who applies a little interest, then just ask if creditors would mind be breaking away from SC (after 6 months) first then just treat Lloyds with exclusive contempt.

Going self managed gave us no problems at all with any of our creditors, even though they got very different payments. Anyone who was charging interest got £1 per month until they stopped it. We saved all the usual payments and paid off a couple of the smaller debts in the meantime.

I am really hard core with this, to me any amount of interest charged is too much. We started off with the plan to pay back every penny we owed but to pay as little interest as possible. After a few months, I changed the target to no interest at all.

We are singing from the same hymnsheet about Lloyds, why do you think they are our one remaining creditor?

TTFTM x

abby1234519

Puzzcat wrote: »

Hi,
Just wanted to point out in case it confused anyone that it is your oh on a dmp, hence you have obtained new credit. I didn't want anyone starting a dmp to think they could do this.
Puzz.x

Yes, that's what I mean by MY debt although confusingly I refer to the whole picture as our debt!

It was better to keep mine out of the DMP purely because of the interest rates and the amount left to pay. Also means I can keep a "clean" credit file as we have bills in my name and I was just conscious of the impact of us both going on a DMP. Once mine is paid off we will concentrate on his and saving an emergency fund. For now I am content with ebaying everything I can to get my debt cleared.

I'm also noticing that I am remarkably less stressed in the evenings and am not picking fights with my husband anymore.

neiljmuk

Time_to_face_the_music wrote: »

Going self managed gave us no problems at all with any of our creditors, even though they got very different payments. Anyone who was charging interest got £1 per month until they stopped it. We saved all the usual payments and paid off a couple of the smaller debts in the meantime.

I am really hard core with this, to me any amount of interest charged is too much. We started off with the plan to pay back every penny we owed but to pay as little interest as possible. After a few months, I changed the target to no interest at all.

We are singing from the same hymnsheet about Lloyds, why do you think they are our one remaining creditor?

TTFTM x

Cool, thanks for the advice! esp re Lloyds Time to read through your posts. I'll ease in to this slowly over the course of the year I think but I like your thinking and truth is, once I've got back up to speed with some immediate one off payment having messed up getting a rainy day fund, I have a budget which allows me to save. Certainly going self managed and pushing creditors who charge interest and won't default will help with accruing funds for FF's and the like. I'm obsessed with spreadsheet use too so this could pan out nicely... For now I just want to see a reduction via Stepchange and those that will default early default.

Bettingmad

I want to pass on a bit of advice to people entering a DMP where Barclays are one of the creditors. Barclays will appear very friendly in accepting your payment proposals. At the start of your DMP you will no doubt be under their interest triggering figure where you will pay no interest.

Barclays do not generally default but will mark your credit files with an AP. As you progress with your DMP over the coming years you will undoubtedly go over their interest trigger figures and see your rate rise between 3%, 6.9%, 12% and sometimes more. It is very hard to play hard ball with Barclays when interest is concerned as you may be three years in. At this stage Barclays can still default at any time and you are unlikely to risk this, especially if your plan was in the region of 6 years. Your credit file will be messed for a minimum of 9 years.

There is only one way to tackle Barclays, force a default at the start of your plan by withholding payments as long as is necessary to achieve that aim. Otherwise you will find yourself a slave to Barclays further down the road where you will have no room to manoeuvre.
It may seem easier at the beginning to be submissive to them however you may find later on that it would have been better to have dug your heels in.