DMP & Mutual Support Thread - Part 11

muppetscotland

fermi wrote: »

Looks like they cover a big range of stuff at Borehamwood

e.g jobs like

http://jobs.rbs.com/jobs/3138310-senior-account-manager

Which I would guess is where the Risk Management part comes in, where you owe them £60K

Yes that makes sense. At the end of the day they can't get money we don't currently have. I will update in here when I get any more info from them.

I am the family worrier and always like to know what the worst could be.....would they just say you owe us 60k and your house has at least that much equity so sell up?! I don't care about a charging order really as I won't be selling any time soon as bo buyers in depressed housing market (for which again I thank you Saudi Arabia and your fight to the death with US shale oil). They can't compel you to sell even after many years? Forcing bankruptcy I guess they could force sale of the house...anyway I'm hoping they will accept the relative pittence we can meantime offer and realise that they will get their money when the oil price improves.

sourcrates

gilmum wrote: »

Another question - I have seen bits on here about CCA's which I don't fully understand but I think it is suggested that if the bank can't prove your debt then it is unenforceable and that this is more likely on older debts - I have found the dates of ours on noodle which are as follows:

Tesco 2004, Virgin 2010, M&S 1994, MBNA 2008, Barclaycard 1995, Barclays current a/c 1992, Halifax 2005, Lloyds Mastercard 2001

Is it suggested that if they can't provide evidence of the agreement you just stop paying - if you do this, what does this do to the credit rating - I presume that they can default you if they haven't already. I am afraid of stopping all payments as being sued would cause issues for my job but if they aren't enforceable, then this would be less of a worry.

Hi,

You can CCA all of the above, except the current accounts, as this legislation only applies to running credit agreements, where an actual agreement is signed, you don't sign a credit agreement for a bank account.

The older an account is, the less likely they are to have the requisite paperwork, they are only obliged to keep it for 6 years, but some keep it longer than that.

Non compliance would mean that all legal routes of recovery would be barred to the creditor, they can still ask you to pay, they can still register information about you with the credit ref agencies, but they cant obtain a CCJ against you in court.

The debt doesn't just disappear, it just becomes unenforceable.

BeingDebtFreeStartsHere

Mkl79 wrote: »

Thanks,i think my tactic is going to be answer first calls (prob re cancelled direct debits),tick each creditor off my list,then when ive spoken to them all once i will block numbers and ignore!! As i said i can deal with letters all day long,its just the pushy little oiks that call you up over and over that i cant stand!
Also,could someone tell me how to feel please?!! After 8/9 years of s?*t i right now feel ecstatic,liberated,and even PHYSICALLY different,all after 2 calls with Stepchange and cancelling my direct debits. I cant shake the nagging prod of guilt for feeling this way or unease that there must be a catch here somewhere...

We felt a huge sense of relief more than anything!! We did get a few phone calls but not many - I just informed them that I had started a DMP with SC and gave my reference number. We got quite a few letters in the post so I either asked a question on this forum and everyone on here was so helpful with what action, if any, I needed to take, or I got quite confident and called the creditors to see if I needed to do anything.

It was all pretty straight forward, no-one came knocking and there were no nasty threats. It is definitely the best move we ever made and this forum has been a godsend.

Good luck!!

BDFSH x

Mkl79

Thanks for all replies,i feel much more confident after reading about your experiances! Hope it goes as smoothly for me and if it does it will be an absolute life changer,just wish i'd done this 5 years ago.

BeingDebtFreeStartsHere

Mkl79 wrote: »

Thanks for all replies,i feel much more confident after reading about your experiances! Hope it goes as smoothly for me and if it does it will be an absolute life changer,just wish i'd done this 5 years ago.

I know exactly what you mean!! We just buried our head in the sand - waiting for loans to finish but in the meantime having to take out additional credit to keep our heads above water, worrying about missing payments and our credit ratings. If only we had started our DMP a couple of years earlier we probably would be £20k less in debt.

Oh well - we got there in the end - just pleased we found this forum as who knows how much debt we'd be in now.

Keep us posted on your DMP journey

BDFSH x

mippy

Hello! I was looking at the Stwpchange site and had a question...

Most of my debt is in 0% balance transfers. If I set up a DMP, will these be withdrawn and I'll have to pay interest? Would it be better to speak to the creditors that I'm struggling with and keep maintaining the rest? One of my cards is with First Direct so I am also concerned that this will cause problems with my bank account.

sourcrates

mippy wrote: »

Hello! I was looking at the Stwpchange site and had a question...

Most of my debt is in 0% balance transfers. If I set up a DMP, will these be withdrawn and I'll have to pay interest? Would it be better to speak to the creditors that I'm struggling with and keep maintaining the rest? One of my cards is with First Direct so I am also concerned that this will cause problems with my bank account.

Hi,
Yes your "0%" offers will revert to standard rate, as by the very nature of a debt management plan, you will be breaking the terms of your original agreement, however most creditors will stop interest when asked to do so, although they do not have too.
It's better to deal with your accounts as a whole, having seperate agreements in place with different creditors, could prove to be confusing.

If you have debts where you bank, then it's best practice to open a new basic bank account, with a bank you have no debt with, use that for your everyday banking, then treat the old account as another debt to service.

It's really all about changing the way you deal with debts, as its nessessary to make quite a few changes to the way you do things.

Sazzie23

mippy wrote: »

Hello! I was looking at the Stwpchange site and had a question...

Most of my debt is in 0% balance transfers. If I set up a DMP, will these be withdrawn and I'll have to pay interest? Would it be better to speak to the creditors that I'm struggling with and keep maintaining the rest? One of my cards is with First Direct so I am also concerned that this will cause problems with my bank account.

Hi Mippy,

Out of interest have you looked at the snowball calculater to see if your debts are doable without hitting a DMP. You'd have to be strict with yourself not to take more credit though. Depends on your debts and income available etc but could be worth looking at if you are able to meet minimum payments.

First rule of DMP world is don't bank where you have debts so it would mean a new account, if you open one now you might get a good deal, check the MSE site for details of offers. Even I, who can't get a bad credit CC managed to open a Yorkshire bank current account in the offer terms.

Hope this helps

Saz

Ellieseleven

Mkl79 wrote: »

Thanks for all replies,i feel much more confident after reading about your experiances! Hope it goes as smoothly for me and if it does it will be an absolute life changer,just wish i'd done this 5 years ago.

It is a life changer and you will be so glad you have gone this route once everything is in place. I'm now into my final year and being on a DMP has taught me so much and I can now look forward to a brighter future;)


Good Luck!
Ellie

MitziB

Hi, after being a lurker for ages (and finding numerous answers to my own questions from people who have gone through the same thing already) I've bitten the bullet and joined in the hope that a current niggling question can be answered.


I'm on a SC DMP with just around 3 years still to go. I have no way of finding any extra cash to make any F&Fs so will just go with the flow for now. I keep seeing so much info about unenforceable debts, compensation payments for this and that,and other CC issues but nothing seems to cover my problem. I am hoping there is some route I should take to get some refund from one of my CC providers, MBNA (now with Link).


Before I started my DMP I never missed a payment on CC bills, albeit only minimums each month. I spent the past year or so of that time surviving by paying off the minimum on one card and as soon as payment had cleared immediately withdrawing it in cash to pay off the other minimum (whose payment date was conveniently sometime later). I did this with other cards too, to my shame and embarrassment, and as interest kept being added and I was approaching being maxed out it meant less and less leeway each month. On occasion I went slightly over-limit or incurred 'late' charges but always rectified this asap. The extra charges and interest was crippling though.


My query is, should MBNA have been aware that for at least the last year before my DMP started that my payment/cash-withdrawal patterns were obvious signs of someone in financial difficulties? I never used the cards for purchases in that last year, just for withdrawing money. I never had a single communication from them during that time to either halt my self-destructive pattern or offer any help and advice.


I have a Noddle account and can see all the payments made to my other CC providers but for some reason they only show very limited information for MBNA and certainly no history of monthly payments/balances.


I'm sorry to be so long-winded about this but does anyone know if I have any grounds for any sort of complaint/redress from MBNA please? If so. is there a procedure I need to follow? I assume the first step is to obtain a copy of statements from them but I understand this costs money and that's something I just can't spare at the moment.


Any advice will be so very welcome. Thanks for such a brilliant resource which never fails to come up with non-judgemental and invaluable advice.