how do i pay off my massive credit card debts!!!

Katie_Chainsaw

My mother has ran out a HUGE credit card debt with Marks & Spencer. She now can't pay the min amount every month because the interest is about £70 each time she looks at her statement.

My boyfriend is a debt advisor and said to not pay any off it until 3 months then it goes to a debt collection agency and no more interest can ever be added on after that point so we could then send them an income / expenditure form and suggested we offer them how much we can pay each month.

What do you think?

P.S She owes just under £5,000 and doesn't want anything like a CCJ or to go bankrupt.

Argyll_2

I would be interested if any one knows the answer to this.

liz105

I doubt very highly that a company would make someone bankrupt for that amount. Im not sure about the no more interest thing, a collection agency could add on their own charges once they owned the debt.

It would be in your mums interest to pay something or contact M&S and come to some agreement ASAP. missing payments would go down on her credit report which would in no way help her out in the future.

Many ppl call the credit card companies and request an interest free period or payment plan. Why not try this? They can only say no.

msmicawber

I doubt the debt would be frozen once passed to debt collectors. And they add charges, so the amount would still keep increasing.

Liz has given good advice, but if that doesn't work,advise your Mum to go to the CAB for assistance. I've found that companies are often immovable when you phone them yourself, but are open to freezing interest and ageeing to affordable monthly payments if the CAB contact them on your behalf.

tallyhoh

It may be right about not adding interest- not sure about this.

However the logic sounds familiar. When I called about a loan that had been given to my FIL and that he now couldnt pay, I was told the same thing by the collection dept of the people who deal with AA loans.

They told me not to pay and it would be sent through to the collection dept who would make arrangements after seeing his income details.

I was not that happy with this advise to be honest. You dont know how much debt collectors may add for "charges" and that is after the original loan company has already put on charges for late payments, letters sent etc etc.
And you would have something adverse on credit reference agencies that would go against you in the future.

Has she tried to contact them about problems with paying? She should at least try this first.

Broken_hearted

Your boyfriend is right in most cases the interest is frozen once the debt is passed on and sometimes this is the only way you can get it to be manageable.
If your mother pays a smaller amount every month and M&S don't agree the debt will keep risiing with interest and charges but it won't be passed to a collection compasny for six months or more. By this time the account will be in an even worse state. We went through all this with Halifax and in the end stopped paying as the account was going up rather than down.

immoral_angeluk

I would strongly recommend that she contact the CCCS for unbiased advice. Sometimes the best advice comes from people who are outside of the situation

Crown

I agree with Immoral Angel about contacting the CCCSfor afvice on this. I am not sure that by defaulting on the account ti stop the interest is the best way forward.

It is normally advised to send your creditors a income/expenditure list with a letter explaining the situation and make a token payment at the same time.
I pay £1 a month to some of my creditors and although it took 4 months they did stop the interest being added. Whatever way you move forward your credit rating will be damaged but I was always under the impression the creditors would be more acceptive if you keep them informed.

good luck