DMP & Mutual Support Thread - Part 11

Sazzie23

rainbowgirl1 wrote: »

Hi all,

I am new to DMP and just found this forum and I have been reading it and it has been so helpful and re assuring. We just started our DMP with SC and first payment will be 1st of Nov.

I am looking for advice. I have never missed a payment and the reason for the DMP was that we kept on borrowing to stay afloat and our debts are now £41k and finally came to our senses that we need to do something about our debt so we contacted SC. We had agreed with SC that we will let our direct debits go through this month and then cancel them. The DDs for most of our creditors went out yesterday and I went online and cancelled them the same day. I checked my bank account today and its now showing that no money left the account even though yesterday it was. Do I contact the creditors to pay them or just let SC know and start the payment with them on 1st of Nov? Do I contact the creditors to pay them or just let SC know and start the payment with them on 1st of Nov? I'm worried as what will happen with missing a payment. Many thanks.

Hi Rainbowgirl

As you've seen lots of folks here been in your position and not looked back from starting a DMP. Great advice from everyone here already, just wanted to add that you may not get clear replies from creditors, some will write and say yes, some will write and say no, tell SC but otherwise ignore them, some won't do anything except make a note on your statement. Always check your accounts carefully to see if you are being charged interest, again some will be no interest, some may be reduced interest, balances on SC will assume no interest, so keep them updated each month by logging onto your on line SC account.
SC won't fight any interest charges for you, so come back here if you need advice how to do this.

Good luck, well done for making a great start.

2spicy

Just one more thing, dont be afraid if they threaten debt collectors ... They cannot do this without first taking you to court and winning their case. You may get letters from "collections agencys" when infact they are part of the same company as your creditor.

Stay strong. and, to everyone just starting out, please, post on here if you need reassurance, want to vent, want to tap into the wealth of knowledge and advice from peoples experiences.

... No one on here is going to judge, were all either going through it or have been through it. No question is silly, if something bothers you or you just want to know how others have done something, ask.

norainbows

Hi


I just wondered if anyone can advise me. IDEM debt collection agency have just called and left a message about an outstanding debt of £94.


Two months ago we finished the long 7 year DMP slog and paid all our debts off - se we thought. All balances through Step Change were nil. IDEM were among the companies debts had been sold to. Again and again in some cases.


What should we do under these circumstances: ask for a print out of all monies paid? Why are they still asking for money. I'm sure they can say over the phone anything but how do we confirm if we really still owe them this amount or not owing to the fact the debts had been sold on and finding out the original figure owed and all the payments made have long since been a muddle to us.


Any guidance would be much appreciated.


Thanks in advance.

gig11

We are coming to the end of our DMP only approx 6 months to go we have paid off £29000 out of £ 33000. I can honestly say its the best thing we ever did. All creditors except Barclaycard and Marks &Spencer stopped interest. Barclaycard have charged 6.9% throughout DMP but Marks and Spencers have been the worse. We have 2 accounts with them one a CC which was defaulted after 14 months on the DMP no interest being charged,the other a Personal Reserve Account which was never defaulted is now marked up to date and has charged 24.9% interest throughout. I wondered about contacting them again referring to the lending code as they have treated the accounts so differentlyand have been totally negative in response to any correspondence. Has anyone any advice to offer re similar experience. Thanks.

January2015

gig11 wrote: »

We are coming to the end of our DMP only approx 6 months to go we have paid off £29000 out of £ 33000. I can honestly say its the best thing we ever did. All creditors except Barclaycard and Marks &Spencer stopped interest. Barclaycard have charged 6.9% throughout DMP but Marks and Spencers have been the worse. We have 2 accounts with them one a CC which was defaulted after 14 months on the DMP no interest being charged,the other a Personal Reserve Account which was never defaulted is now marked up to date and has charged 24.9% interest throughout. I wondered about contacting them again referring to the lending code as they have treated the accounts so differentlyand have been totally negative in response to any correspondence. Has anyone any advice to offer re similar experience. Thanks.

My experience was with Hellifax.........

They defaulted our OD but not two loans which totalled almost £30k of our debt. We wrote to them and quoted Section 227 of the Lending Code, which states:

• Where possible, subscribers should have consistent policies for customers holding more than one product type in terms of charges and interest concessions.

Hellifax contacted us and agreed to treat the loans in the same manner as the OD. They said it would take 3-4 months to go through the process - but six months into our DMP all Hellifax products now defaulted and at zero interest.



Hope this helps

Kate_fixing_it

It's done it's done it's done!!! :j :j :j

Haven't been able to get through to make the latest F&F payment until today but I've done it! Debt is now £3,633.13. 18 payments to SC made, 28 more schelduled monthly payments to go... but we'll see about that - after all my DMP was supposed to be 20 YEARS when I started :eek:

Thank you to each and every one of you that has helped me along the way. I'd be a quivering wreck without you.

Kate x

January2015

Re-posting one of my old posts as it may help some of the newer DMPers (having said that I am still a new DMPer )

Link to Lending Code here

January2015 wrote: »

Lending Code Section 224 states:

• Subscribers should consider reducing or stopping interest and charges when a customer evidences that they are in financial difficulties. Such reduction/suspension decision should be based upon an income and expenditure statement indicating that they are unable to make repayments sufficient to meet contractual terms. Where a customer is able to make only token payments, their debt should not increase as a result of interest and charges levied. The assessment should reflect the customer’s lack of ability to pay rather than the stage an account has reached in the arrears cycle or whether they are using free sources of debt advice. Where a firm declines to allow concessions, they should be prepared to explain why to the customer or their adviser if requested to do so.

The Lending Code states a token payment is "An offer of payment of a small amount, e.g. £1, made by a customer who has no surplus income available for their ‘non-priority’ creditors and whose circumstances have a realistic prospect of improving so that they will be able to resume full or increased payments".


My argument on this one has been that our DMP sees us through to retirement age and whilst we are making more than token £1 payments our payments are still not equivalent to the required amount for the account to be in order and therefore our payments still constitute a token payment (my logic being that anything less than the required minimum payment must be a token payment).

Section 225 states:

• It is inappropriate for interest and charges to continue to be taken where the result would be that the repayment period for the customer becomes excessive. In forming a judgement on what might be excessive, a subscriber should take into account the type of product and the individual circumstances of the borrower.

My argument on this one (the Hellifax OD) was that it was going to take more than 30 years to clear based on our token payments if they kept charging their daily fee. With no fees we could clear the debt by retirement age. I'm working on developing this argument into my complaint with BC re. interest charges. I need to be more awake when I do the figures, but if their interest is going to take us over the DMP period and into retirement then I think I would argue that makes the repayment period excessive - thinking cap needs to be firmly in place when I word my next missive to BC.

Section 227 states:

• Where possible, subscribers should have consistent policies for customers holding more than one product type in terms of charges and interest concessions.

My argument on this one was how can you agree our relationship has broken down and agree to default our OD but not our loans - you need to treat us consistently.

Edit: I should have said these were just the arguments I used based on my interpretation of bits of the Lending Code I thought applied to our individual circumstances and I do realise the arguments I made may not work for everyone (and indeed may not work for me with all of our creditors - but it did feel good to quote the code verbatim when some of them phoned us following our complaint letters - because different departments deal with complaints about different products even though it can be the same bank/creditor). I felt I knew more about it than the poor so and so's phoning me

Ariel82

Hello all,
I've just sent in my dmp application to national debt line, I'm struggling to pay the minimum on credit cards each month but it is possible. Just. Do I keep on paying them until the dmp is set up or cancel the direct debit and send them a cheque for £10 and the letter saying that we're going through a dmp application and here's a token payment. Like I say I can just squeeze out the minimum payment for another few months but I'm confused as to what to do.
Thanks for reading and whatever advice may follow!

January2015

Ariel82 wrote: »

Hello all,
I've just sent in my dmp application to national debt line, I'm struggling to pay the minimum on credit cards each month but it is possible. Just. Do I keep on paying them until the dmp is set up or cancel the direct debit and send them a cheque for £10 and the letter saying that we're going through a dmp application and here's a token payment. Like I say I can just squeeze out the minimum payment for another few months but I'm confused as to what to do.
Thanks for reading and whatever advice may follow!

Send letter - send £1 to each creditor. You are not paying the full amount due so it makes no difference between £1 and £10 to the creditors but those £9's make a difference to you.

Stop paying minimum payments now. Get the letters off, advise creditors of DMP and take 2 or 3 months of £1 token payments to build yourself an emergency fund.

Don't panic - the creditors were all fine with us once we advised we were going into a DMP. Very supportive, very understanding and very patient.

Good luck

Edit: If you haven't already done so, make sure you have a bank account with a bank you have no debts with. If you have debts with your current bank, open a basic bank account with another bank now - you must not owe any money to the new bank already. Transfer your salary (salaries) into the new bank asap.

Ariel82

ive just set it up a couple of days ago so just waiting for the new debit card and everything go come through the post, I'm worried that if I cancel things im going to run up charges for non payment and going over credit limits etc, I've got all the essential direct debits switched already like rent/water/phone etc just none of the unsecured debts, their next payments arnt due until next month now except my bank loan (old bank not safe bank) which is due tomorrow but I cancelled the dd for that accidentally yesterday