Little advice needed

leighavfc

Hi all

Been on a dmp with step change for 2 years, after a big hiccup in march last year ive been on track and making progress

From this month onwards i will be earning a little more money each month which i will pay towards my debts of course to get rid of them quicker.

My biggest creditor is everyday loans, i owe them £1800 currently. I currently owe about £6500 to about 13 creditors (got myself in a right muddle with payday loans!!!).

Now the interest on the Everyday loan is horrendous, out of the £45 Step Change pay them each month i think only around £15 comes off my actual debt with the rest being interest!!

My question is do i pay this extra money to Everyday Loans each month until there paid off in full? (Would take around 6-7 months with SC payment on top) or do i tell SC and increase my payment to them each month for them to spread over my debts?

I know SC will advise me to do the latter but i just dont see the point in paying so much interest to Everyday loans when i could nullify this in a few months and tackle the rest of the debt. Of course it was my fault that i got in this mess in first place but i believe paying Everyday off in full will help me and of course take almost a third of my debt out in one shot.

Thanks in advance

enthusiasticsaver

That makes sense to me but I am afraid I do not know how stepchange and DMPs work. Do they regularly review payments?

leighavfc

I think they review every 12 months of your dmp but if ur circumstances change then they change your payments as and when this happens. They will advise me to use the money fairly over all my creditors but i believe that all but Everyday have frozen interest, so i am actually chipping away at my debts with all of them but barely touching my debt with Everyday loans.

I just believe its pointless spreading the money out at the moment while i have a chance to get rid of the biggest issue of my debt. This will only last 6 months or so, and then all that extra money will go towards the rest of my debts.

crazy_cat_lady

Have you asked them again about freezing interest? There will be a good template letter on here.

leighavfc

I have asked a couple of times if they will, each time they have said no. The person who deals with my account, who i actually have a good relationship with even tried for me to help me out but they still refused.

I think my best option is to pay them off asap then tell Step Change ove done this and put the rest of the money towards paying the rest of my debt off as quickly as possible!!

sourcrates

leighavfc wrote: »

I have asked a couple of times if they will, each time they have said no. The person who deals with my account, who i actually have a good relationship with even tried for me to help me out but they still refused.

I think my best option is to pay them off asap then tell Step Change ove done this and put the rest of the money towards paying the rest of my debt off as quickly as possible!!

Either that or stop paying them altogether and wait until they sell the debt on, put in a written complaint about the interest been added, stay off the phone, they are not your friends I'm afraid !!!

If they continue to refuse to stop interest, take them to the FOS, they are supposed to treat you fairly, if you believe there actions to be unfair, that is what you should do.

National_Debtline

Hi Leigh


It's disappointing to hear that one single creditor is grimly clinging on to its right to charge interest when all others have stopped doing so. Even if they are simply acting within their contractual rights, you may be able to argue that they are breaching the spirit of the FSA's CONC guidance, and more specifically this excerpt (their highlighting):


CONC 7.3.4 R01/04/2014
A firm must treat customers in default or in arrears difficulties with forbearance and due consideration.




CONC 7.3.5 G01/04/2014
Examples of treating a customer with forbearance would include the firm doing one or more of the following, as may be relevant in the circumstances:

1. (1) considering suspending, reducing, waiving or cancelling any further interest or charges (for example, when a customer provides evidence of financial difficulties and is unable to meet repayments as they fall due or is only able to make token repayments, where in either case the level of debt would continue to rise if interest and charges continue to be applied);

This guidance can be found in full at https://www.handbook.fca.org.uk/handbook/CONC/7/3.html


Challenging Everyday's conduct by quoting this guidance may be worthwhile - if you simply pay them off in preference to your other more cooperative creditors, it risks only encouraging such behaviour on their part. Stepchange may be able to help you draft an appropriate letter.


Dennis
@natdebtline

leighavfc

sourcrates wrote: »

Either that or stop paying them altogether and wait until they sell the debt on, put in a written complaint about the interest been added, stay off the phone, they are not your friends I'm afraid !!!

If they continue to refuse to stop interest, take them to the FOS, they are supposed to treat you fairly, if you believe there actions to be unfair, that is what you should do.

sourcrates wrote: »

Either that or stop paying them altogether and wait until they sell the debt on, put in a written complaint about the interest been added, stay off the phone, they are not your friends I'm afraid !!!

If they continue to refuse to stop interest, take them to the FOS, they are supposed to treat you fairly, if you believe there actions to be unfair, that is what you should do.

No your right they are not my friends and i dont treat them like that either. I cant wait to see the back of them in fact, but obviously until i pay them off this aint gonna happen lol I think i will give it one more go as it cant hurt to try again i suppose. They are a nightmare though and will ring all day everyday until they speak to me, even at work !

If this doesnt work then im just going to pay them off i think, to be fair, (dont know why im being fair, but thats just me lol) it was me who took the loan out and agreed to the rate of interest, and they are doing what they can legally. I have accepted a long time ago that the balance left is what i owe them and i am fully willing to pay every penny of it. I understand what you are saying though and it would be even better if i could get them to freeze the interest.

National_Debtline wrote: »

Hi Leigh


It's disappointing to hear that one single creditor is grimly clinging on to its right to charge interest when all others have stopped doing so. Even if they are simply acting within their contractual rights, you may be able to argue that they are breaching the spirit of the FSA's CONC guidance, and more specifically this excerpt (their highlighting):


CONC 7.3.4 R01/04/2014
A firm must treat customers in default or in arrears difficulties with forbearance and due consideration.




CONC 7.3.5 G01/04/2014
Examples of treating a customer with forbearance would include the firm doing one or more of the following, as may be relevant in the circumstances:

1. (1) considering suspending, reducing, waiving or cancelling any further interest or charges (for example, when a customer provides evidence of financial difficulties and is unable to meet repayments as they fall due or is only able to make token repayments, where in either case the level of debt would continue to rise if interest and charges continue to be applied);

This guidance can be found in full at https://www.handbook.fca.org.uk/handbook/CONC/7/3.html


Challenging Everyday's conduct by quoting this guidance may be worthwhile - if you simply pay them off in preference to your other more cooperative creditors, it risks only encouraging such behaviour on their part. Stepchange may be able to help you draft an appropriate letter.


Dennis
@natdebtline

Dennis

Thanks for those specific wordings of guidelines, they will be helpful when drafting up a letter to them. My only concern is if i start playing up kicking up a fuss about it, will they start playing up?

I am quite happy with how things are at the minute and of course the interest is a bit of a bummer but if i got them paid off quick, surely this would mean less hassle overall for me?

leighavfc

Right i finally spoke to Everyday loans earlier. They have once again said they wont freeze the interest. So unfortunately nothing is going to change in this respect.

Im going to pay them £200+ a month extra to just get them paid off. As my contact at Everyday loans said the more i pay obviously the better for me and the less interest charged due to balance being £200+ lighter each month. This is not a contracted payment so i can change it as and when needed, but im going to try and stick to it until they paid off.

Not a great result but it could be worse i suppose. Ive calculated i should be off my dmp in around 20 months time if i stick to my bigger payments from now on, as i want to get myeslf in a position to finally get a mortgage and buy my first house!!!! 1 step at a time though

Thanks for all your advice and suggestions, i appreciate iit :T