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Debt_buster_2

Hi, 6 months ago I started to take back control of my life and tackle our debt issues. The scale of the debt was and still is significant, but it’s coming down quite nicely! My one and now biggest frustration is that one of the debts is in a DMP (I never planned it or needed to do this when I spoke to them all earlier in the year). I’m 99% sure they said that going onto 0% for a period of time would NOT show on my credit file. I’ve just logged a complaint and they have come back saying that they’ve listened to the calls and it was made clear to me and I agreed! 😡😡😡....I didn’t do it with anyone else so its looking like my error but I’m soooooo sure I didn’t agree! What’s my best course of action?? This is going to hurt me for 6 years now and we planned to move house in approx 3 years. Worth noting, I plan to settle this debt in December. Any help much appreciated

benemm

HI

I am looking for some advice as to what to pay off first. It's mine and my husband's debt as all our bank accounts and Credit cards are joint! I normally do the banking but it seems to be getting bigger and I'm stuck!!

My husband gets paid £556 weekly so £2224 a month (in 5wk months we have £556 spare as bills are 4 weekly).

I get paid £827.95 and get monthly child benefit of £136.

The bills all come out of my husband's wages and leaves us with about £400. And then we should have mine spare! The problem is the following credit cards!!

Lloyds £3,510 0% until 12 Sept 19 (We have had to put Christmas shopping on this now which isn't 0%)
Nationwide £3,683 0%until 12 March 19
Sainsburys £3,464.55 0% 17 July 2020
MBNA £6,047.61 0% until 12 November 19

John Lewis was our monthly spending card food petrol etc. We use to pay it off monthly but since I went part time for child care reasons (We have 5yr old twins) we are up to the limit of £6500 and pay about £60 interest a month.

It's all a bit of a mess so any help/suggestions gatefuly recieved.

Ignore the signature at the bottom as it's an old one and I don't k ow how to change it!!

Former_StepChange_Linsi

Hello

Welcome to the forum and thanks for posting.

You can ask for a copy of the call transcript and a copy of the notes on your account via a subject access request. This can be done verbally or in writing.

If you were given the wrong information you could raise this with the creditor directly or if they’re unable to resolve the issue escalate your complaint to the relevant regulatory body. This is usually the Financial Ombudsman for debts such as credit cards, personal loans, overdrafts, catalogues etc.

If you were given the correct advice you can add a notice of correction to your credit file to explain your situation. This will be seen by any future lender or landlord looking at your credit file.

I hope this helps,

Linsi

Debt_buster wrote: »

Hi, 6 months ago I started to take back control of my life and tackle our debt issues. The scale of the debt was and still is significant, but it’s coming down quite nicely! My one and now biggest frustration is that one of the debts is in a DMP (I never planned it or needed to do this when I spoke to them all earlier in the year). I’m 99% sure they said that going onto 0% for a period of time would NOT show on my credit file. I’ve just logged a complaint and they have come back saying that they’ve listened to the calls and it was made clear to me and I agreed! 😡😡😡....I didn’t do it with anyone else so its looking like my error but I’m soooooo sure I didn’t agree! What’s my best course of action?? This is going to hurt me for 6 years now and we planned to move house in approx 3 years. Worth noting, I plan to settle this debt in December. Any help much appreciated

Former_StepChange_Linsi

Hi there,

Thanks for getting in touch and welcome to the forum.

If you can cover the minimum payments for each of your credit cards then any extra money could be paid to the provider charging the highest interest rate. From your post this appears to be Lloyds.

Once Lloyds have been paid you may then want to focus on the card with the next highest interest rate or (if the remaining cards are all 0%) the card where the 0% interest rate ends the soonest.

Alternatively, if covering the minimum payments across each of your debt each month means you have to use credit to pay household bills or buy food and other essentials then getting some debt advice would be recommended.

You can create a budget to get free, impartial debt advice online using our Debt Remedy tool. It’s anonymous, so using the tool to read about your options won’t impact your credit file. Here is the link for our Debt Remedy tool.

I hope this helps,

Linsi

benemm wrote: »

HI

I am looking for some advice as to what to pay off first. It's mine and my husband's debt as all our bank accounts and Credit cards are joint! I normally do the banking but it seems to be getting bigger and I'm stuck!!

My husband gets paid £556 weekly so £2224 a month (in 5wk months we have £556 spare as bills are 4 weekly).

I get paid £827.95 and get monthly child benefit of £136.

The bills all come out of my husband's wages and leaves us with about £400. And then we should have mine spare! The problem is the following credit cards!!

Lloyds £3,510 0% until 12 Sept 19 (We have had to put Christmas shopping on this now which isn't 0%)
Nationwide £3,683 0%until 12 March 19
Sainsburys £3,464.55 0% 17 July 2020
MBNA £6,047.61 0% until 12 November 19

John Lewis was our monthly spending card food petrol etc. We use to pay it off monthly but since I went part time for child care reasons (We have 5yr old twins) we are up to the limit of £6500 and pay about £60 interest a month.

It's all a bit of a mess so any help/suggestions gatefuly recieved.

Ignore the signature at the bottom as it's an old one and I don't k ow how to change it!!

dfw69

Hi I am trying to get out of debt but I'm having problems with various debt collection agencies so I would like to ask for advise on how to deal with them.
The latest episode is I received a letter from advantis claiming that they are collecting a debt owed to dwp . I am on jsa at the moment so I didn't understand why the dwp would need to deal with a collection agency so I called the dwp who confirmed that I do not owed them the money and they have no idea why advantis are trying to collect it. I want to find out how this has happened but I am reluctant to contact advantis by phone as I have been advised not to call them. Can anyone suggest how I can find out how the dca got my details? Should I ask the dwp or advantis? Thank you

jimbo1984

Hi everyone, I have recently applied for a DRO after accruing debts of approx £11,000 which included about £800 of housing debt (rent) to a previous social landlord. This unfortunately happened after becoming ill and lengthy delays in getting welfare benefits sorted out, however my question is that I am currently renting privately with no rent arrears, my rent debts were included in the DRO, however Social Services have told me that due to my illness, I need to apply for a bungalow & I need to know whether or not I would be accepted on the social housing register when I have rental debts included in the DRO or do I have to wait until the 12 months moratorium period is up and these are written off before making an application.

I am concerned that if they claim that they cannot rehouse me because I have a previous rent arrears, they may ask me to make payments towards this debt before allowing me on the list & thus making me prefer one creditor over another jeopardising my DRO.

I would appreciate any information you could give me.

Thanks

StepChange_Rachael

Hi

Thanks for messaging.

That is strange that the DWP have advised there is no outstanding debt but Advantis are collecting for one.

I’d suggest writing to Advantis and ask them for a breakdown of the debt that they say you owe and advise them that you’ve contacted the DWP and they’ve said there isn’t any debt owed. You might want to add on that the letter is not an acknowledgement of the debt, but that you’re being chased for a debt you don’t believe you owe.

If it’s possible that Advantis are collecting for another debt and have got confused when saying it’s a DWP debt, then they would need to be able to supply this information as well to take any further action to collect for it.

Hope you get to the bottom of it.

Thanks
Rachael

dfw69 wrote: »

Hi I am trying to get out of debt but I'm having problems with various debt collection agencies so I would like to ask for advise on how to deal with them.
The latest episode is I received a letter from advantis claiming that they are collecting a debt owed to dwp . I am on jsa at the moment so I didn't understand why the dwp would need to deal with a collection agency so I called the dwp who confirmed that I do not owed them the money and they have no idea why advantis are trying to collect it. I want to find out how this has happened but I am reluctant to contact advantis by phone as I have been advised not to call them. Can anyone suggest how I can find out how the dca got my details? Should I ask the dwp or advantis? Thank you

StepChange_Rachael

Hi

Thanks for your message and welcome to the forum.

I can understand your concern as it’s possible that insolvency might impact you applying for a rental property; however this is usually down to the landlord if they run a credit check. As far as I’m aware it’s unlikely to impact your application based on the type of debt included in the application.

It’s more likely applying for a DRO would impact an application for private renting and less likely to impact housing such as council or a housing association application.

The fact that you’re up to date with your current rent is a positive as it shows that you’re able to maintain your current costs and it’s the previous debts that are the problem due to going through difficulties at that time.

I’d suggest speaking with your DRO provider to discuss your concerns further but from what you’ve said I think it’s unlikely to impact being on a social housing register.

Thanks
Rachael

jimbo1984 wrote: »

Hi everyone, I have recently applied for a DRO after accruing debts of approx £11,000 which included about £800 of housing debt (rent) to a previous social landlord. This unfortunately happened after becoming ill and lengthy delays in getting welfare benefits sorted out, however my question is that I am currently renting privately with no rent arrears, my rent debts were included in the DRO, however Social Services have told me that due to my illness, I need to apply for a bungalow & I need to know whether or not I would be accepted on the social housing register when I have rental debts included in the DRO or do I have to wait until the 12 months moratorium period is up and these are written off before making an application.

I am concerned that if they claim that they cannot rehouse me because I have a previous rent arrears, they may ask me to make payments towards this debt before allowing me on the list & thus making me prefer one creditor over another jeopardising my DRO.

I would appreciate any information you could give me.

Thanks

jimbo0797

Good morning,

My name is James, when i was at University back in the early/mid noughties i made the not so clever decision to take out a Barclaycard credit card. Now aged 35 i still have that same credit card account and because of various financial calamities, unforeseen circumstances and the actual fact as well that they put my credit limit up without asking me, it has risen to a total of about twelve thousand pounds. My wife thought it best to move my Barclays bank account away to Nationwide, who i am currently with and take out a Nationwide credit card as 0% for 12 months. As you can imagine we did not pay off enough so now i have about five thousand pounds on this one.
The minimum I pay on the Barclaycard is around £180 to £190 a month and on the Nationwide it is £125. Being minimum and that we need to sometimes use it the amount is not going down and not likely to either.
I have not looked into PPI on the Barclaycard, i would not know where to start. But i am looking at what options I have. I can just about afford to pay the minimum payment for each, that is with working 2 jobs 7 days a week.

I do not know what to do, any and all advice is welcome.

Kind regards,

James

StepChange_Rachael

Hi James

Welcome to the forum.

I appreciate it must be very frustrating when you’re paying off as much as possible and the interest is stopping you progressing quickly.

In terms of PPI you can check if you're entitled to a PPI payout and you can do this free, the MSE website has a link which provides information on how to do this. You can find the link here.

If you’re meeting the minimum payments and are eligible for low interest borrowing this can be a good option for some people, I assume as you’ve previously done this option that it’s no longer open to you.

If the only way to keep up with the minimum payments is to work seven days a week and if you’re finding that you still have to use credit regularly then I’d suggest looking into alternative debt solutions. You can explore your options and receive debt advice anonymously online by using Debt
Remedy.

Hope this is of some help.

Take care,
Rachael

jimbo0797 wrote: »

Good morning,

My name is James, when i was at University back in the early/mid noughties i made the not so clever decision to take out a Barclaycard credit card. Now aged 35 i still have that same credit card account and because of various financial calamities, unforeseen circumstances and the actual fact as well that they put my credit limit up without asking me, it has risen to a total of about twelve thousand pounds. My wife thought it best to move my Barclays bank account away to Nationwide, who i am currently with and take out a Nationwide credit card as 0% for 12 months. As you can imagine we did not pay off enough so now i have about five thousand pounds on this one.
The minimum I pay on the Barclaycard is around £180 to £190 a month and on the Nationwide it is £125. Being minimum and that we need to sometimes use it the amount is not going down and not likely to either.
I have not looked into PPI on the Barclaycard, i would not know where to start. But i am looking at what options I have. I can just about afford to pay the minimum payment for each, that is with working 2 jobs 7 days a week.

I do not know what to do, any and all advice is welcome.

Kind regards,

James