DMP & Mutual Support Thread - Part 11

stormpassing

He'll all I'm new here. I have just returned my paperwork for a dmp with stepchange. Has anyone moved there account over to Barclays cash card from a current account through the agreement they have with stepchange? Did it work out? Did they take funds from your old account. I'm curious and a little worried about it if I'm honest. Any advice/pat experience greatly received, thanks

sarriep

I know we were advised to open an account not related to any of our creditors when we started our DMP - this was a while ago so not sure whether it's the same now. We opened accounts with the Co-op and then could be sure barclays/ barclaycard couldn't touch our money.

sarriep

From a bit of an oldie ...

I just wanted to share a bit of my journey - the ups and the downs, the highs and the lows. the stress and the relief and that there IS an end out there somewhere! Our light at the end of the tunnel is a little over a year away after paying off nearly £46,000 on a DMP with Stepchange over the last 7 years with just over £7,000 left to pay.
It's been hard - we've all had to go without and have a huge change in lifestyle. (Which to be fair - was the reason we got into this in the first place!) We've had to change how we feel about debt collection agencies, final demands & default letters and have had to learn to live in a world without credit.
It has really given us, as parents, an understanding about how important it is to manage financially and teach this lesson to our children. I would NEVER want them to go through what we have over the last 7 years. As a result, my 18 year old today had a rant about how DARE Barclays keep sending her credit card applications! Don't they realise how bad they are? (A little bit of me burst with pride!) My 14 year old has a paper round and saves pretty much all of her money. My mission is to make sure they understand money management (still working on the 12 year old! )
We've become very careful shoppers, bargain hunters, money saving wherever we can and getting quite a lot of pleasure in it. It's still hard when we can't afford to do things or buy the children some of the things they want
Anyway, seeing the light at the end of the tunnel is a good feeling. We finish in October next year and have been paying £580 a month. I'm looking forward to saving that!

stormpassing

Thank you for the response sarriep. Really inspires me hearing the success stories, good and bad. Feel like my emotions are all over the place. Sometimes I feel positive others very sad it's come to this and reading the posts here always helps. As for accounts I've opened a coop account just in case so fingers crossed ��

Sazzie23

stormpassing wrote: »

He'll all I'm new here. I have just returned my paperwork for a dmp with stepchange. Has anyone moved there account over to Barclays cash card from a current account through the agreement they have with stepchange? Did it work out? Did they take funds from your old account. I'm curious and a little worried about it if I'm honest. Any advice/pat experience greatly received, thanks

Yes as sarriep says, SC do advise that you need a new 'safe' bank account, but I do recall that they had some sort of agreement with BArclays bank where they wouldn't offset - the term for taking your money and paying it the debt. Best to have a new start anyway, makes it easy to sort out your essential direct debits, and lose the stuff you no longer need/afford.
O

sarriep wrote: »

From a bit of an oldie ...

I just wanted to share a bit of my journey - the ups and the downs, the highs and the lows. the stress and the relief and that there IS an end out there somewhere! Our light at the end of the tunnel is a little over a year away after paying off nearly £46,000 on a DMP with Stepchange over the last 7 years with just over £7,000 left to pay.
.....
Anyway, seeing the light at the end of the tunnel is a good feeling. We finish in October next year and have been paying £580 a month. I'm looking forward to saving that!

That's fantastic sarriep ; just about one year to go, next year you will be debt free :beer:

bertman wrote: »

We are now two and a half years into our DMP, we have paid off 32% of our debts and are about to start paying off some of the smaller ones over the next few months towards Christmas, one will be paid off next month, another two months after that and a third in December. Still a long way to go but at least we are being there. Barclaycard have sold of two of our debts this month but have retained three other's which we find strange but as we have found out there are no hard and fast rules with these guys. At least we can offer full and finals with the new companies eventually as they have paid less than the outstanding balance.

.

Yeah creditors play by their own rules, but you are making it work, one third down and some creditors gone or going, has to be great motivation, :beer:.

Sazzie23

cydney11 wrote: »

Thanks for this post SF. I have also not been on this forum for some time, but pleased to see new thread and lots of new people setting out and benefitting from its wisdom. I've been on SC DMP since 2011 and consider myself a plodder, but when i see £21000 paid on my SC statement £7000 to go I can barely believe i will soon be debt free. I have not been without debt since I was £20, 30 years ago! I too couldn't commend SC highly enough as I would not have had the skills or nerve to go self managed at the start.
I have learned to have a little wiggle room in my payments, and newbees; broken boilers, damp, car repairs really do happen!
I am now using wiggle room to try to bring dfd forward considerably;
a final sprint. My incentive is that i would
really like to move home. I bought a modest house in 2006 and for a time was probably in negative equity. I now have some equity in my home, but worry also that I wont get another mortgage even when debts cleared. I have a decent income and secure ( as it can be job). I was curious about your experience of SC financial, as i will need advice and had noticed them recently but wondered if they might be more finger waggy than other IFA or better?

Congratulations on df and new home.

Cyd

Congratulations Cyd, 75% gone, only 25% to go, another amazing feat, and I can honestly say I'm very jealous of those that can see an end, but at the same time I'm sooooo happy for you and so grateful you folk come on here as it helps keep me motivated and not give up.

:beer:

I hope the thoughts of moving work out for you.

charmed1318

Hi Charmed,

Took me a moment to work out what you were asking, but i see what you are saying now, if you've had a debt that defaults 6 years after the default it falls off your credit file but then gets passed to a DCA, does it reappear on your credit file?

I think most defaulted debts would have already gone to a DCA long before the 6 years were up as otherwise they wouldn't have been enforceable, or have I got the wrong end of the stick here ?

The debt can only default once. If it is subsequently sold on (even years and years later which certainly does happen on occasion) it will not reappear on the credit file in a different name - it is gone from the files for good .

Unenforcability is a different matter and nothing to do with the credit file unless anybody wants to discuss that one?

Brogden

Many thanks Sazzie and Brogden.

Basically the story is about 5/6 years ago, I got a contract phone with V1RG1N, then six months ago I went looking at my credit files. I saw this debt with them, but have never been contacted by them, despite being a PAYG customer ever since. I wrote to them enquiring about it - stupid obviously, but I didn't take note of the date.
I then wrote (with an I&E) with a monthly (£1) and a F&F (£25) payments, they replied saying they would be happy to accept £25 a month (haha), and if I don't stick to it I would be passed on, which I have no problem with.
I just don't want it reappearing on my credit file, with a more recent default date, which Brogden says it won't.

Hope that makes more sense.

Charmed xx

stupid-fool

cydney11 wrote: »

I was curious about your experience of SC financial, as i will need advice and had noticed them recently but wondered if they might be more finger waggy than other IFA or better?

Congratulations on df and new home.

Cyd

I found SC Financial very good - not at all judgemental, but sympathetic. They matched us with a lender that actively lends to people trying to rebuild their financial status after a life event. The mortgage is not the cheapest but not overly expensive either. The lender also understands that this is a short term solution and as soon as their customers credit scores improve they will be off to a cheaper mainstream lender. For this reason you pay a lump sum up front (can be added to the mortgage) which is roughly equivalent to the early redemption fees on mainstream deals, then there is no exit penalty.

It was a nervous time, but I would recommend SC Financial as the understand the situation you are in and I trusted them not to rip me off with any fees etc.

Brogden

charmed1318 wrote: »

Many thanks Sazzie and Brogden.

Basically the story is about 5/6 years ago, I got a contract phone with V1RG1N, then six months ago I went looking at my credit files. I saw this debt with them, but have never been contacted by them, despite being a PAYG customer ever since. I wrote to them enquiring about it - stupid obviously, but I didn't take note of the date.
I then wrote (with an I&E) with a monthly (£1) and a F&F (£25) payments, they replied saying they would be happy to accept £25 a month (haha), and if I don't stick to it I would be passed on, which I have no problem with.
I just don't want it reappearing on my credit file, with a more recent default date, which Brogden says it won't.

Hope that makes more sense.

Charmed xx

Hi Charmed

Putting my head on the block................:)

This mobile debt should disappear from your credit file six years from the date of the original default with 'Virging on the Ridiculous' no matter who it is now with. If it worked the way you were fearing we would all have a massive setback and could have defaults on our files for life :eek: !!

In this world we always have to add a caveat......people are people and mess up and things can go wrong on credit files. Whilst I am still working up the courage to look at mine after a three year break ....we should all make sure we are in agreement with what is shown there. If not we must be in touch with the credit reference agency but firstly the predator itself to tell them they messed up and should put it right (with a little compensation to boot )

Brogden x

System

Not been on the boards for a while as everything was going smoothly and I was so rushed off my feet with other things. Just wanted to know if anybody has heard of a DCA called Moorcroft Group PLC?

Halifax have sent a letter saying they have sent OH's overdraft debt to them, but I have emailed them to tell them about DMP etc and email has bounced back as undeliverable. Also seemed a bit odd as the account number on the Halifax letter is not actually OH's account number.
We had already had a letter from HAlifax about 6 weeks ago saying they would be passing it on to a DCA, but it just seemed a bit odd that the contact details they are giving me for the DCA, seem to be wrong and the acc number being different.
Am I just getting worried about nothing?