DMP & Mutual Support Thread - Part 11

make_the_change

How do F&Fs work? When's the right time to ask? Etc... I have a Next account, had it for quite a few years now, not used it for a few years, been paying minimum payments and now can't afford to do that. Had a balance once of around £900, now down to around just under £500. Not started my DMP but wondered if an F&F was an avenue worth approaching? Tell me if I am being silly for contemplating this!

sourcrates

make_the_change wrote: »

How do F&Fs work? When's the right time to ask? Etc... I have a Next account, had it for quite a few years now, not used it for a few years, been paying minimum payments and now can't afford to do that. Had a balance once of around £900, now down to around just under £500. Not started my DMP but wondered if an F&F was an avenue worth approaching? Tell me if I am being silly for contemplating this!

The account must be defaulted obviously.

Simply offer to the creditor directly, say £100 quid to settle in full.

If they say no, increase your offer to £150.

It's all about negotiation with the creditor, if you go down this route, use the legally binding template letter from national Debtline :

https://www.nationaldebtline.org/EW/sampleletters/Pages/Full-and-final-settlement-offers-%28sole-name%29.aspx

make_the_change

sourcrates wrote: »

The account must be defaulted obviously.

Simply offer to the creditor directly, say £100 quid to settle in full.

If they say no, increase your offer to £150.

It's all about negotiation with the creditor, if you go down this route, use the legally binding template letter from national Debtline :

https://www.nationaldebtline.org/EW/sampleletters/Pages/Full-and-final-settlement-offers-%28sole-name%29.aspx

By default, is that the one that stays on your credit file for 6 years? Thank you!

MitziB

sourcrates:


Just a quick post to tell you that, thanks to picking your brain a few days ago, I posted my 2 letters to MBNA yesterday about asking for refund of overlimit and late credit card fees at a time when I was suffering great financial hardship. Fingers crossed something will come of it, and even if it doesn't at least I've tried!


Have also checked my account on Noddle (where the CC companies that haven't been 'sold on' show lots more useful historic information than MBNA, now with Link, does) and I saw that Lloyds CC and 2 others show definite figures of payments/balance over the time I'm querying . Feeling much more optimistic about them than MBNA to be honest but might wait to see what MBNA have to say first before I set anything in motion there.


Lots of robust debate on here today! I love this thread.

sourcrates

make_the_change wrote: »

By default, is that the one that stays on your credit file for 6 years? Thank you!

Yes it is, paid or not, they will be gone in 6 years !!!

bsclp118

Hi,

Thanks for the reply.

Unfortunately whichever way I do the figures I seem to be meeting the minimum payments on these accounts, mostly because they are currently on zero, or low, interest rates. I have been trying to snowball so one of them is a an MBNA fixed low rate and the other has a good 24 months 0 % left on, I'm not sure about my Tesco interest free but I think there's a good few months remaining.

G'ahh this is very confusing. I guess once they start applying the "normal" interest my repayments will likely fall below the minimum repayment... but it seems an annoying way to go about things. I guess that's the price I pay for not managing my debts

I suppose I can't do very much now other than to see what happens. I'm really worried that I am trying to deal with my debts but I'm going to end up in a much worse situation because of all the interest being added. I was going to go self managed but then... well to be honest, I got a bit nervous so I went the StepChange route - I thought this would at least mean I had support whilst everything got set up initially and I can always look at going self managed down the road.

Time_to_face_the_music wrote: »

Stepchange have an unusual way of allocating payments to creditors and this caused massive problems at the start of our DMP.

My concern about this would be that above minimum payments can trigger creditors to consider you are not in financial difficulty and hence refuse to stop interest. I know you have stated that these debts are interest free at the moment but that may stop when they find out you are entering a DMP and possibly breaking the T&C of the credit agreement.

With current payments, would the debts be paid off before the interest free period ends? If so, I would keep them out of the DMP but you will need to fight this with Stepchange. The alternative is to consider self managing your DMP and look at how the payments would change. You don' have to commit to this but just take a look and put the figures in and see what comes out:

https://nedcab.cabmoney.org.uk/dmp.asp

TTFTM x

January2015

Hi all

Letter arrived from BC today - we are currently making token £1 payments to hopefully achieve a default (this strategy is being implemented with 2 BC accounts).

They have charged us a £12 late fee because we didn't pay the amount identified on our I&E but I can live with that as they have not charged interest (and were previously charging interest). The £12 late fee is less than the monthly interest would have been.

I got quite excited becausethe letter started 'Default Sum Notice' I thought they were defaulting the account. No - read it properly January2015 - this is a default charge, not an account default notice. :mad:

They advise they cannot charge interest on default sums for the first 28 days but if not cleared in full they will charge 1.87%.

Hey ho - the fight continues;)

Brogden

Time_to_face_the_music wrote: »

I didn't insult you. You however did insult me with your references to holier than thou, bragging and should be a politician.

This must stop. Whatever would the newbies think coming on here to find an old hand throwing mud at an innocent member who is simply opening a subject for discussion?

I DID NOT INSULT YOU.

When you shout 'walkies' in the air your doggie will come running. It seems if you shout 'holier than though' or 'bragging' or 'politician' that you come running and although the words in the post are not directed at you......(look back through the posts to see) you decide that they are and that this is a personal insult to you? You could not make this up :rotfl: !! You then follow this up with a post to me brimming over with vitriol :mad:.

I have seen your name on here on and off for a few years but I do not recall ever corresponding with you through the site and cannot understand what caused you to grab hold of a few words which were not addressed to you and then suddenly behave in such a manner.

Let us not play with words....if principals are 'different' we can assume they are pretty much 'higher' or 'lower.' Let's not pretend it isn't me who has received the insult in a post addressed directly to me.........

Enough of this. I have explained my feelings about the whole 'pay it back' argument and I am certainly not on my own as you can see. I have had enough and this is my final word on the matter.

You need not bother to reply and if you post any further insults I will alert the moderators.

make_the_change

sourcrates wrote: »

Yes it is, paid or not, they will be gone in 6 years !!!

Thanks sourcrates slowly getting my head around things. Sure I will have more questions as I progress. All quiet so far with creditors for now!

Time_to_face_the_music

Brogden wrote: »

This must stop. Whatever would the newbies think coming on here to find an old hand throwing mud at an innocent member who is simply opening a subject for discussion?

I DID NOT INSULT YOU.

When you shout 'walkies' in the air your doggie will come running. It seems if you shout 'holier than though' or 'bragging' or 'politician' that you come running and although the words in the post are not directed at you......(look back through the posts to see) you decide that they are and that this is a personal insult to you? You could not make this up :rotfl: !! You then follow this up with a post to me brimming over with vitriol :mad:.

I have seen your name on here on and off for a few years but I do not recall ever corresponding with you through the site and cannot understand what caused you to grab hold of a few words which were not addressed to you and then suddenly behave in such a manner.

Let us not play with words....if principals are 'different' we can assume they are pretty much 'higher' or 'lower.' Let's not pretend it isn't me who has received the insult in a post addressed directly to me.........

Enough of this. I have explained my feelings about the whole 'pay it back' argument and I am certainly not on my own as you can see. I have had enough and this is my final word on the matter.

You need not bother to reply and if you post any further insults I will alert the moderators.

I really can't work out if this post is tongue in cheek or serious, surely it must be the former? Vitriol? Throwing mud? Calling moderators? Really? I'm sorry if you disagree but however you defend it your initial post which included the statement

"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."

was an insult not to me but to everyone who has been guilty of daring to be proud to have paid off their debt. I am one of those,even my signature declares it. Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.

I always read this thread, having spent so long here in the past but this time I am truly sorry I bothered coming back, it makes me really sad that you have taken such affront and I genuinely have no idea why.

Good luck to old friends here and I will check out the Debt Free Roll of Honour thread regularly to look for your names and celebrate there with you.

A very bewildered and sad TTFTM x