DMP & Mutual Support Thread - Part 10

Ali80

It's just not acceptable, particularly for people (like me), just starting out on DMP and whose statements were last week. DMP cancelled as a result and interest racked up. I feel a complaint coming on....

NoMore

Jon81 wrote: »

I have a payment pending on my account and am assuming it's sc

So do I now. Funny that !

January2015

Nothing showing on either of our BC accounts.

My account had a statement generated this week, and it shows a whole month without any payment - paid on 25th March by SC, nothing since - except 19p interest charged. Does this mean BC will treat non-payment as broken agreement.....I hope so, as they may default me

Ali80

January2015 wrote: »

Nothing showing on either of our BC accounts.

My account had a statement generated this week, and it shows a whole month without any payment - paid on 25th March by SC, nothing since - except 19p interest charged. Does this mean BC will treat non-payment as broken agreement.....I hope so, as they may default me

No mention of default when I rang them, just "tut, tut, you haven't paid so now we're cancelling your plan and adding interest!". I also wondered about possibility of default but now payment is pending and interest is back to 29.9%.

SquirrelNuts

Message back from Barclaycard below.

I suspect that the person writing the reply doesn't understand the concept of a DMP charity paying them on my behalf, but the good news is that they did have my payment amount right so confirmation in a sense that the payments are being applied.

"Dear Mr SquirrelNuts,

Thanks for your message.

I can confirm that the payment of £xx.xx has been received however the funds have not been applied yet.

We experience high levels of fraud and bad debt linked to payments being returned. As soon as we receive the payment we take it off the balance to give the customer immediate interest benefit. However if the customer's bank does not honour the payment, we do not find out for up to 1 day. We explain this on the back of our statements.

As your account is registered for mybarclaycard online servicing you have the facility to view when your payments have been received on-line.

Should you have any further queries, please get in touch. "

PS - I now reckon that Stepchange pays each Creditor a single sum of money each month - say £10k to BC, £7k to Wonga, £11k to Nationwide etc - and alongside that they supply some kind of spreadsheet with a breakdown of each account and payment value. Then I reckon that somebody at the creditor end has to apply each individual payment to each account. If this is the case, then it appears that BC had a regular routine going, then Stepchange changed the payment date and Ooops...

Squiz

SquirrelNuts

Ali80 wrote: »

It's just not acceptable, particularly for people (like me), just starting out on DMP and whose statements were last week. DMP cancelled as a result and interest racked up. I feel a complaint coming on....

Hi Ali80,

When I was doing the £1 token payments to BC, I had interest added on the first two months. Each time, I called up their collections department to explain that I was setting up a DMP etc and they immediately refunded the interest and charges.

If you're up to it, give them another call to ask for a refund. They will also be able to re-instate the DMP payment plan for you directly instead of you having to ask Stepchange to do it.

Squiz

Ali80

SquirrelNuts wrote: »

.
If you're up to it, give them another call to ask for a refund. They will also be able to re-instate the DMP payment plan for you directly instead of you having to ask Stepchange to do it.

Hi Squiz,

I asked about refunding interest and about them reinstating payment plan and they said no to the interest refund and basically suggested I pay them separately from DMP, offering to talk me through my finances to see if they could come to an agreement re. payment to them. I didn't negotiate with him as I don't know where I stand re removing BC from DMP and thought it was easier to contact SC about reinstating payment....arghhh! So frustrating!

SquirrelNuts

Ali80 wrote: »

Hi Squiz,

I asked about refunding interest and about them reinstating payment plan and they said no to the interest refund and basically suggested I pay them separately from DMP, offering to talk me through my finances to see if they could come to an agreement re. payment to them. I didn't negotiate with him as I don't know where I stand re removing BC from DMP and thought it was easier to contact SC about reinstating payment....arghhh! So frustrating!

ok... well you did the right thing on the call, as it's in your interest to keep all creditors within the DMP. Otherwise inevitably each creditor will be trying to set all sorts of payment amounts and you will very quickly go over the total amount you can afford to repay.

Really surprised they refused to refund interest though, as the BC staff were very accommodating with me. Maybe a letter of complaint is in order?

Squiz

Ali80

SquirrelNuts wrote: »

Really surprised they refused to refund interest though, as the BC staff were very accommodating with me. Maybe a letter of complaint is in order?

Squiz

Yep, think so! Cap 1 and Next removed interest/charges without a fight, think BC are going to be trouble for me!

Thanks for advice.

phoenixx

I am of the opinion that all this procrastinating in applying payments is BC shamelessly profiteering. The guy I spoke to pretty much admitted that they are all out to make a profit from anyone, even those on DMPs. He said if you carry on paying a 'normal'amount then they would continue interest. Insinuated that we should arrange something outside the DMP - very shifty indeed...