DMP & Mutual Support Thread - Part 11

Ali80

Had a letter from RSM today who have been appointed by Natwest to recover 20k owed on a loan. They want me to ring them and supply my income and expenditure. Was just wondering if anyone has experience of RSM and whether I should ring/write/inform SC? The letter is a bit intimidating. Thanks.

sourcrates

Ali80 wrote: »

Had a letter from RSM today who have been appointed by Natwest to recover 20k owed on a loan. They want me to ring them and supply my income and expenditure. Was just wondering if anyone has experience of RSM and whether I should ring/write/inform SC? The letter is a bit intimidating. Thanks.

Simply refer them to stepchange, they will deal with them.

DCA letters are meant to be intimidating, there 1% fact, 99% fiction .

Brogden

sourcrates wrote: »

Brogden.

A realitive of my ex wife works for a well known collector of debts, in a city that once boasted the longest single span suspension bridge in the world, I think you know who I mean.

Now she's a nice girl, and not what you'd expect of a typical DCA employee, but she knows sod all about the consumer credit act, and even less about the law.

She reads from a script mainly, in a call centre, now once I would of agreed with you, that there entire Buisness model was based on chance, well it is, and it isn't.
Debtors can be put into 3 main groups :

(1) those who panic, and ring straight away to pay.
(2) the ones who write to request evidence.
(3) those who totally ignore them.

As with most things, it's the human element they depend on, they know a certain % will ring and pay straight away, as they panic, and don't know what else to do, they also know some will write requesting proof of the debt, then there's the 3rd group who will ignore them no matter what.

Which group do you think the DCA will target the most ?

Group 1, as they are after a fast turnover, with as little interference as possible, dosent matter if they don't hold the right paperwork, most people never request it, if everyone refused to pay, DCA's would be out of Buisness in weeks, but it won't happen, as they panic and pay up without question, or they make an arrangement to pay, so they more or less know how much they can make from certain batches of defaulted debt, it's all risk assessed based on how people will react to there threatograms and calls.

Only 1-10% of debts ever see a court room, (intermediary figures), 90-99% never do, those odds are staggering, they place a total reliance on there ability to get you to pay by pestering you on the phone, or by scaring you witless with official looking letters, and people fall for it, that's what keeps them in Buisness, anyone who makes a fuss, by requesting a CCA, or other evidence of a debt, usually gets put to the bottom of the pile for collection, people who ignore them completely, have around a 90% chance of not paying anything.

I'd take those odds any day of the week !!

Thanks for your considered response Sourcrates. I have been so busy over the weekend that this is the first chance I have had to catch up properly .

As you have mentioned previously, increased regulation and affordability has meant that the DCA's are big softies compared to how they were but the old tactics are still the same aren't they?

'Mr Bloggs - you have a huge problem so pay this.' So often after suddenly rushing to the loo, Mr Bloggs will pay, ask no questions and request no evidence !! Who needs a CCA?

A lot of us blush when we talk about this and I have read posts where people have bragged about 'paying back every penny' in the interests of appearing holier than thou ! They should get jobs as politicians. Most of us can't pay back every penny because the original predator has cut their losses and sold us on......so who or what are we paying? Unfortunately, by no choice of our own we are just characters in some sort of farce. The most important question for us must surely be.....'when will it all come to an end for us and we will have closure?'

I can say that with 5 defaulted credit card debts left to pay, my CCA exercise has so far enabled me to decide the priority in which I should pay these off. It could be that the three who haven't complied or fully complied may comply in the future and I will have to amend my plans.....I accept this and the waiting game is murder.....:(. Also, one of these is Mrs. B's who has informed me that I am 'low' for even going through this process.....so I won't be treating that predator too harshly in the interests of continuing domestic bliss :eek:.

Thanks to Fermi and yourself for the assistance. Looking around the debt forums a lot of people make a big thing about whether the CCA is pre or post 2007 but a lot of people don't know what they are talking about do they? As I see it for somebody like me or most of us here' it probably doesn't make a jot of difference. I can't speak for anybody else but unless my situation ever became completely out of hand or I was mercilessly or vindictively pursued, my case would simply not end up before a judge. I just wouldn't allow it......I'd pay something or come to some arrangement somehow !!

So I have a bit of time now to agree partial and final settlements on the two debts which I can conclude are enforcable and then take my time on the other three. I will certainly not be in tears if it turns out that all five are enforcable - I would have always expected them to be. I am (once again) shocked about the general incompetence I see.

I am not walking away from these debts but organisations (DCA's in this case) who are wholly incompetent may receive a little bit of punishment for being so useless.....that's only fair !!

Have a good day everyone :D:D!!

KID77

Hi Everyone

I haven't commented for a while but have been reading everyday and lots of great advice being given as always.

All going ok for us, 2 of our debts have been sold, 1 x Robinson Way and 1 x PRA Group, no contact from them yet. I emailed them based on the letters I received from original creditors as I wanted to get in their first and ensure they can't say we are not communicating.

I think all debts are now defaulted including BC, just need to wait til 14th of the month to absolutely confirm. So perhaps in March 2022, I can remortgage :-)

With regards to talk of guilt and paying back all that we owe, i have paid ridiculous amounts of interest on my credit cards and charges on my overdrafts so don't feel as guilty about them. However, we had a loan which didn't have interest front loaded, it was at a good rate and still has 60% outstanding of the original loan amount. So I do feel more guilty about this although if they offered to write it off I wouldn't say no :rotfl:

KID
xx

Time_to_face_the_music

Brogden wrote: »

I have read posts where people have bragged about 'paying back every penny' in the interests of appearing holier than thou ! They should get jobs as politicians.

I paid back every penny we owed but there was nothing holier than thou about it and definitely no bragging. We all have our own principles and mine are clearly different to yours but that's ok because if we were all the same the world would be a very boring place.

My own pet hate is people thinking that we all got here through overspending, having a mad youth and/or living a champagne lifestyle on a lemonade income. There are other reasons for debt and I wish people would realise that.

TTFTM x

Mkl79

Yeah,thats right,when my dad found out about a tiny fraction of my debt he hit the roof and called me "f-ing useless". Cheers! Never once did he try and understand my troubles at work,or that my vehicle (used for said work) was costing me more than my house at the time in repair bills and hp,or what all this was doing to my mental state,or that we had just moved house AND had a baby right at the start of the credit crunch,all he thought was i was living the life of riley and not paying for it!!! Needless to say i never went back there for any support and ended up over doubling the debt he knew about all due to a lack of guidance/advice/understanding.
I wont make the same errors with my son. At least thats one good thing to come of this.
First of my cancelled direct debits was due out today...lets see what happens...

FunBrum

Hi.

I've been lurking on here for some time now, and have picked up some great knowledge.
I started my DMP in 2013. I was losing sleep with worry as my income plummeted and I was only paying the minimum on my cc. I knew things were getting out of control when I was paying bills and rent with them as all my wages were servicing the minimum payment on the cards. I was navigated to a debt management company by a work colleague, and they took over which was a God send at the time as I just wanted relief from the stress. At least now o could sleep!
I was quite happy to plod along and totally ignored the debt as I knew it was being played....No matter how slowly...and then i didn't care how long it would take, I just wanted the 'vultures' to leave me alone! By then they were charging extortionate interest, and I couldn't keep up!
Fast forward 2016 and the interest has stopped and they are all defaulted, which since lurking on here, I gave found out is a good thing.
Because of my income, I am only able to pay £100.42 over the four cards which now balance £12,547. Unfortunately the debt management company are charging me £30 out of that for their service.
Until I came on here, I was unaware that I there were DMC that were free or I could self manage. I didn't know I could ask for f&f on the debt, as I'm working on accumulating extra dosh to get rid of the debt sooner than later. I'm still not clear on the CCA and what it means but I feel so much better from reading these threads and especially this one and bow to your attitude and knowledge.

Sorry if I droned on, but I will be grateful for any ideas or advice anyone has to make my debt free journey easier and swifter. Cheers.

MitziB

FunBrum wrote: »

Hi.

I've been lurking on here for some time now, and have picked up some great knowledge.
I started my DMP in 2013........

Because of my income, I am only able to pay £100.42 over the four cards which now balance £12,547. Unfortunately the debt management company are charging me £30 out of that for their service.
Until I came on here, I was unaware that I there were DMC that were free or I could self manage.
Sorry if I droned on, but I will be grateful for any ideas or advice anyone has to make my debt free journey easier and swifter. Cheers.

FunBrum, it is perfectly possible for you to swap from a fee-paying DM company to a free one like StepChange. I'm not sure about the ins and outs of how you go about it but I'm sure I read on here somewhere in the recent past of someone's experiences at doing it.


Maybe someone will be along later who can point you in the right direction.


Good Luck

Time_to_face_the_music

FunBrum wrote: »

Hi.

I've been lurking on here for some time now, and have picked up some great knowledge.
I started my DMP in 2013. I was losing sleep with worry as my income plummeted and I was only paying the minimum on my cc. I knew things were getting out of control when I was paying bills and rent with them as all my wages were servicing the minimum payment on the cards. I was navigated to a debt management company by a work colleague, and they took over which was a God send at the time as I just wanted relief from the stress. At least now o could sleep!
I was quite happy to plod along and totally ignored the debt as I knew it was being played....No matter how slowly...and then i didn't care how long it would take, I just wanted the 'vultures' to leave me alone! By then they were charging extortionate interest, and I couldn't keep up!
Fast forward 2016 and the interest has stopped and they are all defaulted, which since lurking on here, I gave found out is a good thing.
Because of my income, I am only able to pay £100.42 over the four cards which now balance £12,547. Unfortunately the debt management company are charging me £30 out of that for their service.
Until I came on here, I was unaware that I there were DMC that were free or I could self manage. I didn't know I could ask for f&f on the debt, as I'm working on accumulating extra dosh to get rid of the debt sooner than later. I'm still not clear on the CCA and what it means but I feel so much better from reading these threads and especially this one and bow to your attitude and knowledge.

Sorry if I droned on, but I will be grateful for any ideas or advice anyone has to make my debt free journey easier and swifter. Cheers.

Hi FunBrum :hello:

If you still want someone to manage your DMP for you, Stepchange can do all the work in changing from a fee paying to a free DMP, check out the details here and give them a call http://www.stepchange.org/Howwecanhelpyou/DMPdebtmanagementplan.aspx

If you wanted to change to a self managed DMP, and it's really easy to do, you could check out the NED CAB site:
https://nedcab.cabmoney.org.uk/dmp.asp

You've come to the best place, this forum and particularly this thread and its predecessors totally changed my life.

TTFTM x

Brogden

Time_to_face_the_music wrote: »

I paid back every penny we owed but there was nothing holier than thou about it and definitely no bragging. We all have our own principles and mine are clearly different to yours but that's ok because if we were all the same the world would be a very boring place.

My own pet hate is people thinking that we all got here through overspending, having a mad youth and/or living a champagne lifestyle on a lemonade income. There are other reasons for debt and I wish people would realise that.

TTFTM x

I'm doing well this week for a man of lowly principles...........it's taken me until Tuesday to be insulted

TTFTM, I do not believe my principles are lesser than yours on the basis of anything said by either of us on this thread. If you have spoken about 'paying back every penny' then I believe you but I couldn't otherwise have been sure. I have stumbled on these words mentioned by various people on various threads over the last few years.

Congratulations on your debt free status :T but the 'principle' of 'paying back every penny' is unfortunately very flawed unless (1) the debt has not been assigned away from the original creditor (2) the debt is not settled partially and (3) full interest in accordance with the terms and conditions of the account is paid until the balance is extinguished.

In a DMP we will virtually all be guilty of letting down the original predator in at least one of these. We are then somebody who they wish they had never engaged with and we are a drain and a loss maker for them.

At the point the agreement ends in a default then they can (and usually do) cut their losses and sell for a low price. It is then surely reasonable that we cut our losses and settle for a low price too.

We will all be careful with money (particularly now) so....would we pay more than we need to escape from a contract where the provider of the service has terminated their agreement with us? Would we pay more than we need to a buidling firm who has prematurely left the job?

For these reasons I cannot 'get' this idea that we should punish ourselves additionally by 'paying it all back' because in many cases we are simply not paying back and could not pay it all back even if we tried to.

I don't want an argument but we deserve it to ourselves to think carefully about how much we pay and who we pay it to.

For a man of lowly principles I have spent a hell of a lot of time thinking about this and how the whole thing sits with me .