Very debt help

Lilly2526

Hi,

I deperately need some help.

I have an account with very which was always been paid on time for last 5 years and never paid a penny in interest. Last year I bought stuff worth 3K on BNPL for a year believing that I will manage to pay it off before payment free period ends. Unfortunetly my other half got ill begining of 2015 and lost his job and now we are unable to pay our very debt. It was due yesterday but could only make minimum payment of £192. Now as it has redicolus amount of APR on it (59.9%) I have been charged with about £1800 interest. I have a couple more BNPL on it which are due by the end of this year too so in total I owe them £4300 + £1800 interest as of now. And after adding interest I am overlimit by £1400 too.

I have no other "unmanageable" debts except this which is now out of my hands. I have two credit cards which I pay in full almost each month with £250 and £1000 limits.

Which way shall I go with very now? As I am unable to pay more than 100 a month and thats what I am going to talk to them once I contact them. If I dont pay my other BNPLs in full I will be charged with even more interest. I want to call them after I know my options before hands so asking here if anybody can guide me to the right direction please?

Is there anyone I should take debt advice from, like debt companies etc? I have no idea where to start it from.

Bobarella

Hi Lily
So sorry to hear your situation has got out of hand. There are debt charities. Like Step Change. I did a quick Google search and it comes up with their number immediately.
I am not an expert but I'm sure someone else will post more fully on this shortly.
Main things are don't panic, & as Martin Lewis says there is always a solution to debt so please don't feel you can't get out from this.

Bob

sourcrates

Hi,
You need to talk to very about this, they may be able to help you out, they may not, unfortunatly they do not have a good track record in this dept, lots of people, in similar situations, have reported shop direct group (very/Littlewoods) to be quite inflexible where payment arrangements are concerned.

Don't worry too much about this, circumstances can conspire against you occasionally, if they do not agree an affordable re-payment schedule for you, and you are not too bothered about your credit file, you have the option of with holding payment from them, allow the account to default, and get sold on, you will then be able to agree an affordable arrangement with the DCA that picks it up.

Hopefully it won't come to that, and you will be able to sort something out with them, in the first instance I suggest you call them, and ask to speak to the credit control/collections dept, explain your circumstances to them, and see what they say.

fatbelly

Stepchange, Payplan, National Debtline are all pretty reliable.

The aim is to get you debt-free but the interest is the killer here - so it's either transfer it to 0% deals (probably not going to be possible) of default on payment, though Very will be slow to stop interest.

I wouldn't call them - do it in writing. Work out what you can offer and put it to them

https://www.nationaldebtline.org/EW/steps/Pages/default.aspx

Chrysanthemum5

I have actually found very to be erm very helpful in the past. I had 2.5k of debt on bnpl and couldn't afford the minimum once I was out of a job and they put me on a payment plan for a year paying £90 a month until I could pay more

enthusiasticsaver

Are you able to transfer to any 0% deals or is your credit record showing any defaults? If not the best option is to write or phone. They will probably ask for income/expenditure details but may agree to freeze interest. Are you able to sell any of these items you bought on BNPL to pay a chunk off?