Elderly dad's credit card habit

NectarCollector

I've been in pretty much the same situation with my partner, she had various credit deals (iPad brought on credit, in a payment plan with mail order catalogue, etc) and paying off the minimum each month, not realising that the minimum payments were barely scratching the amount of interest she was being charged. The result being her weekly earnings were only (and I mean by a few pounds) just covering the minimum payments and if she was unable to make a minimum payment there was a horrible £50 fee on the credit deal she was on. On top of that she regularly went overdrawn because of this and every month incurred a £12 overdrawn fee.

Eventually I convinced her to allow me to look over all the paperwork and was pretty horrified at the financial mess she had gotten herself in.

I drew up a budget after seeing her bank statements, and agreed to pay off her nastiest debt in full on the condition that when she was out of debt to the companies charging ridiculous interest that she pay me back at 0% interest. (iPad on credit from a store). We went in together with the remaining payments totalling around £300 and after a few calculations the store accepted £200 as the rest was interest that would only have accrued should the payments had continued as before.
With the mail order catalogue she now had enough earnings to cover minimum repayments and extra payments each month to pay it off faster than the interest was added.

It took a couple of years but she got there and is now in a position where she has not been overdrawn for over a year and has a small savings pot

knightstyle

First well done you for not running away and wanting to help!
My DW has been doing my BILs money for over 30 years when she found out about his problems, she now has a joint account with him and all his income and DDs etc are in this account but he does not know the password! She transfers a regular amount to a cash+ account for him to spend.
Plus I am a year younger and have regular mail shots offering 0% deals, £16k Barclaycard limit with far less income than him.

arse_neck

Thanks very much to all of you for your really helpful responses. There are indeed more things going on in the background which I won't go into here, but he's been spending way beyond his means for some time.

I've seen his bank statement for the past month and it horrified me. Now I'm trying to get hold of his credit card statements to get some idea of how he's accrued all this debt – which should be somewhat easier now I have the big stick of "you borrowed money from me" to beat him with! I also made him cut up the cards in front of me. If only I could make him close his Amazon account as well!

I agree that consolidation isn't necessarily the answer, as he's been there before only to get into similar trouble again. If anything, I'd like him to try to chip away at the debt at 20pc for a month or so, then look at a statement and see how much interest has been added to it. Hopefully then the penny would finally drop.

But equally, I hate the thought of credit card companies making any more money out of him, so if there is some way of getting him onto a lower rate, while still forcing him to take responsibility and repay the debt, great.

Thanks for the heads up about a credit history check, by the way. That hadn't occurred to me.

I don't think he's been scammed or is being manipulated in any way. From what I can see, it's just a case of poor judgement on his part. Now it's just up to my brother and I to rein him in – and StepChange is another good shout. We were discussing earlier the possibility of getting him to own up to this in front of a third party. It may help him to take responsibility for it if he's almost shamed into doing so by a financial expert in this way.

But once again, many, many thanks to all of you for your suggestions and support. This has been a stressful weekend, but you've helped bring some clarity to how we can move forward.

Stuart

bizwax

Stuart, you seem to have all the great advice you need already and I don't think there is much that I can add.

I would only say that i'm sorry for your situation, it must be quite uncomfortable having to manage your fathers finances. All I can say is best of luck with it

arse_neck

Quick update: A Clearscore search has revealed that the credit card debt is in fact nearer £13k. But Dad has agreed to let me take control of his current account and open a separate spending account for him, so we can slowly chip away at this ludicrous figure. Hopefully this will be up and running by next week with the seven-day switch.

I wouldn't have got to this point without the help of this forum, and can't thank you all enough.

Dobbibill

Just to check, do you know the 7 day switch is for moving current accounts from one provider to another?

If it's an additional account you want, you can normally open those online in seconds if you can be ID'd. Card and pin follow in a few days.

All the best helping your Dad in sorting this out.