DMP & Mutual Support Thread - Part 10

Ali80

Hi all,

Not been around for a few days, really nice to catch up on everyone's posts and to see so much activity on the thread!

Seven of my 9 creditors have stopped interest and written to acknowledge my DMP. Natwest have stopped interest on my loan (this is by far my biggest single debt, so pleased with this ), although they haven't written to me at all......

So the only one being slightly difficult is BC. They wrote to say my account is on hold for 30 days but have applied interest (£16) taking me over my limit. No overlimit fee though. They have reduced interest to 6.9% and requested minimum payment of £95.19. My SC payment will be a few pence lest than the minimum and 1.8% of the total debt.

I can understand how trying to force a default early on might be a good idea but what is the best way to go about this? Should I initially write to them and ask them to freeze interest and go from there?

Ali

carlyfarley

Just checking in, I've sent my first lot of token payments off and I'm up to page 106 on the thread!
Carly x

sourcrates

Ali80 wrote: »

Hi all,

Not been around for a few days, really nice to catch up on everyone's posts and to see so much activity on the thread!

Seven of my 9 creditors have stopped interest and written to acknowledge my DMP. Natwest have stopped interest on my loan (this is by far my biggest single debt, so pleased with this ), although they haven't written to me at all......

So the only one being slightly difficult is BC. They wrote to say my account is on hold for 30 days but have applied interest (£16) taking me over my limit. No overlimit fee though. They have reduced interest to 6.9% and requested minimum payment of £95.19. My SC payment will be a few pence lest than the minimum and 1.8% of the total debt.

I can understand how trying to force a default early on might be a good idea but what is the best way to go about this? Should I initially write to them and ask them to freeze interest and go from there?

Ali

Lots of people have had similar experiences with Barclaycard.
In most instances, they have reduced interest, but not stopped it altogether.
You can try going "cap in hand" to them, and ask for it to be stopped, some people have been successful, others haven't.

If they won't, then you could follow through with an unfair treatment complaint through the FOS, other options include stopping paying altogether, allow debt to be sold on, then agree terms with new owner, depends how much you want to get into this.

January2015

Haven't heard from BC so logged into the both credit card accounts tonight. No interest charged on my account, but interest charged on DH's account:mad:

I've contacted them through the secure online message system - another game of wait and see what the response is:mad:

Edit: my payment to BC is 1.02% of the debt and DH's is 1.03%

neiljmuk

Morning all! Started the day with a brand new spangly signature! A few less questions from me for a bit. Finish getting a few spreadsheets polished up for the war on debt and potential self management of DMP down the line, budget sheets and YNAB finalised and lots and lots of reading. This should all take care of it'self for a few weeks now, once the complaint letter is posted to Lloyds!

mummy_knows_best

Hi Im still new to all this would someone kindly quickley explain token payments and emergency fund to me please?

neiljmuk

mummy_knows_best wrote: »

Hi Im still new to all this would someone kindly quickley explain token payments and emergency fund to me please?

Tons of detail in the history of this thread. Someone will advise you to sit down and read the lot including parts 1 to 8. I think it would take about a year but it's going to make anyone an expert lol.

To summarise when you decide to do a DMP you can wait a few months before you ask them to commence it. You suddenly start paying all your creditors £1 each and write explaining why. You tell them you are negotiating a DMP and that they will be advised further but in the meantime they will get token payments. In the 2 or 3 months you only pay £1 per creditor you actually save the difference between that amount and the much higher (hopefully) amount you can contribute to the DMP once it starts, and end up with a nice pot of money for emergencies in time for when the DMP kicks in. That's it.

You might need some of that money to get a few trivial debts out the way, or pay off a friend or buy a Laptop to write letters because yours is broke or stockpile the freezer. It's to get you in a stronger place so you break the cycle of needing to dip into credit cards (not that you'll be able to anymore).

The token payments will break some of your creditors will forcing them to default you or freeze interest more willingly too in many cases.

Keep asking questions and read back this thread and you'll learn how folk have applied this to their own situations.

SquirrelNuts

neiljmuk wrote: »

Tons of detail in the history of this thread. Someone will advise you to sit down and read the lot including parts 1 to 8. I think it would take about a year but it's going to make anyone an expert lol.

To summarise when you decide to do a DMP you can wait a few months before you ask them to commence it. You suddenly start paying all your creditors £1 each and write explaining why. You tell them you are negotiating a DMP and that they will be advised further but in the meantime they will get token payments. In the 2 or 3 months you only pay £1 per creditor you actually save the difference between that amount and the much higher (hopefully) amount you can contribute to the DMP once it starts, and end up with a nice pot of money for emergencies in time for when the DMP kicks in. That's it.

You might need some of that money to get a few trivial debts out the way, or pay off a friend or buy a Laptop to write letters because yours is broke or stockpile the freezer. It's to get you in a stronger place so you break the cycle of needing to dip into credit cards (not that you'll be able to anymore).

The token payments will break some of your creditors will forcing them to default you or freeze interest more willingly too in many cases.

Keep asking questions and read back this thread and you'll learn how folk have applied this to their own situations.

Pretty much spot on Neiljmuk - you are learning fast my friend! :rotfl:

In all seriousness, the first comment on reading the earlier threads if you can is a good one.

I did the same - it didn't quite take me a year - but oh boy there is so much good advice enshrined in those pages...

If you cant stomach ten whole threads, then at least consider going back to the start of this one and having a read through those pages, you'll be surprised how much you pick up...

Squiz

mummy_knows_best

Hi so are you saying once you have contacted step change and worked it out you can ask them not start it straight away or you start paying the token payments yourself before you contact step change?
TIA

SquirrelNuts

mummy_knows_best wrote: »

Hi so are you saying once you have contacted step change and worked it out you can ask them not start it straight away or you start paying the token payments yourself before you contact step change?
TIA

Hi MKB

No problem with starting to set things up with Stepchange whilst you are paying token payments.

I used their Online Remedy tool on the website back in late November to come up with the amount available to pay into the DMP each month, and once I was happy with that I then requested the application pack.

This took a while to come through anyway (a couple of weeks or so) and by then I had already replaced my normal end of Nov payments with £1's.

Next wage was just before Christmas and I knew I would find starting up then difficult, so when I returned the application I including a covering letter to say that I wanted to start payments to Stepchange from Feb 1st and not Jan 1st.

I then did another round of £1 tokens end of Dec and another round end of Jan. My first Stepchange payment was taken from my account Feb 1st and distributed to creditors on Feb 25th.

In the meantime I saved a small amount out of Nov & Dec wages in an emergency pot, which was just as well as just before Christmas the Washing Machine and Toilet Seat broke within 2 days of each other!!! (and no... I wasn't sitting on either at the time! )

Squiz