DMP Mutual Support Thread - Part 12

sourcrates

muppetscotland wrote: »

We are in a DMP (self administered) been doing so for 3 years without issues.
Now out of the blue one of our creditors, Cabot Financial, has begun calling our relatives trying to speak with us. Our home phone was disconnected as part of our money saving activity, and we declined to give any creditors our mobile numbers. We have asked all of them to correspond by post only, and this is the first time we have had anyone step out of line.
Questions - is it legal for them to call our relatives? and supplementary to that, what on earth should we do about it?

Many thanks all!

Unfortunately Cabot have form for this kind of thing, however under new GDPR laws, they can now face harsher punishment for non compliance.


Written complaint to Cabot citing they are breaking Data protection laws by discussing your accounts with other people.

Advise you gave them permission to contact you in writing only, and that instruction still stands.

Any further breeches will result in complaints been registered with the FOS and the ICO.

lulabelle01

I’ve not told my creditors that I’m having financial difficulties yet as I’m still trying to get my head around starting my DMP. I’m thinking of going self managed. Would someone explain to me how snowballing works?
Also my 3 credit cards are all still in my maiden name should I just leave them as that or try to get the names changed?

Willing2Learn

DebtCamel - Guide to Snowballing

There are two schools of thought about how best to snowball debt:

• The MSE way is to pay down the debt with the highest APR first
• The psychological method is to pay down the smallest debts first. This makes the debts appear to be paid quicker - but it is all psychological

http://www.stoozing.com/calculator/snowball-calculator.php

Edit: As far as your name goes. You want all your credit accounts to be registered with the same identical name. So check all three credit files and advise all your credit accounts of your name change. Also make sure you change your name on the electoral roll so that everything reported to the Credit Reference Agencies is consistent.

Steff90

Hello everyone!!
God where do I begin?! (And I don't even know if I'm posting in the correct place 🙈 someone feel free to scold if I have!)
I'm in around £19.5k of debt - credits cards & loans. Just faced up to it the other day bit the bullet after many sleepless nights.
I contacted Payplan and am awaiting a phone call from them to go through all my income & expenditure - the dread!!
Firstly, has anyone had any experience first hand with Payplan and how helpful did you find it?
I've tried so hard to try sort it myself as I've built up my credit score for about 5 years to a pretty decent point and I know if I go into a DMP it will trash this and quite rightly so!
I know my credit rating should be my main worry but I can't help it!
I just worry as I rent and if I have to find another house at same stage it'll be horrific as no one will want me as a tenant because they do credit checks (I'm a single mother to my 5 year old son).
Anyway I don't really know what else I'm asking but just need to know things will be ok. I'm dreading this phone call and getting it all in place as I've read and skimmed many of these forums and it's a lot to take in.
I hope someone can help put this newbies mind at ease 🙈😂😭 x

lulabelle01

Willing2Learn wrote: »

Edit: As far as your name goes. You want all your credit accounts to be registered with the same identical name. So check all three credit files and advise all your credit accounts of your name change. Also make sure you change your name on the electoral roll so that everything reported to the Credit Reference Agencies is consistent.

The name on all 3 credit cards match and they all show on my credit report. I changed my name on the electoral register as that was surprisingly easy. I don’t know how to go about doing it with mbna (the website isn’t helpful) and I’ve not looked into doing it for RBS.

Sazzie23

Steff90 wrote: »

Hello everyone!!
God where do I begin?! (And I don't even know if I'm posting in the correct place 🙈 someone feel free to scold if I have!)
I'm in around £19.5k of debt - credits cards & loans. Just faced up to it the other day bit the bullet after many sleepless nights.
I contacted Payplan and am awaiting a phone call from them to go through all my income & expenditure - the dread!!
Firstly, has anyone had any experience first hand with Payplan and how helpful did you find it?
I've tried so hard to try sort it myself as I've built up my credit score for about 5 years to a pretty decent point and I know if I go into a DMP it will trash this and quite rightly so!
I know my credit rating should be my main worry but I can't help it!
I just worry as I rent and if I have to find another house at same stage it'll be horrific as no one will want me as a tenant because they do credit checks (I'm a single mother to my 5 year old son).
Anyway I don't really know what else I'm asking but just need to know things will be ok. I'm dreading this phone call and getting it all in place as I've read and skimmed many of these forums and it's a lot to take in.
I hope someone can help put this newbies mind at ease 🙈😂😭 x

Hiya

Defo in the right place. I don't frequent the forums much these days but wanted to make sure you had a reply to wake up to. It takes a lot to say, I have debt problem.

It will effect your life and at times it will be tough, but as you've found carrying debt isn't easy either and eventually the bubble will burst, so think of it as a shorter term pain for a long term future.

PayPlan used to be one of 2 main DMP providers but as a say I'm not very current on here. I remember them to be ok but Stepchange always seemed more popular. If you don't like what they say you can go to Stepchange or set up your own plan.

Depending on your income there may be other ways to go rather than a DMP. In my experience the best way to start is to say to your creditors, I have a problem and they must give you at least 30 days to come up with a plan, however as soon as you do that your credit rating starts to dive and depending on how you are living you may find access to funds gets limited so set up your emergency fund first and make sure you can pay your bills for this month.

A safe bank account that you can use away from any creditors, pref one that accepts DD and SO is a must. You'll get a better choice if you do this before you've put anything in place with PP or creditors.

The others will no doubt be along soon with other helpful advice but it will be ok, the world won't end and you will survive and one out a better person at the end. Your child will probably benefit in the long term too and while young won't know any different. Do make sure any other parent pays their way though.

Good luck and hang in there, the first few months are the worst but it gets easier eventually.

Saz

SpagBol

Hello everyone,
We've been on our self-managed DMP since October last year and everything has settled down nicely. I'm starting to see time benefits of being in the arrangement with no accounts to check every day and hundreds of bills to open! :j

I have decided to write to all of our creditors (14 accounts!) to ask for CCA evidence, I will buy some envelopes and postal orders and do that this week. Even if just our lowest balance (£393) is unenforcible, it would be brilliant. I bet they aren't as all of them are with large banks but you never know.


Does anyone know if I can send 2 or 3 CCA requests and relevant postal orders in the same envelope? Any saving on postage would be good but I don't want to get it wrong.
As ever, welcome and good luck to newbies and thank you to everyone helping :beer:

Suseka97

SpagBol wrote: »

Does anyone know if I can send 2 or 3 CCA requests and relevant postal orders in the same envelope? Any saving on postage would be good but I don't want to get it wrong.
As ever, welcome and good luck to newbies and thank you to everyone helping :beer:

It's fine to send the letters together - I sent 3 to PRA and 3 to Link and each set just went in one envelope. As you say, it saved on the 'signed for' cost of postage.

Suseka97

Steff90 wrote: »

Hello everyone!!
God where do I begin?! (And I don't even know if I'm posting in the correct place 🙈
I'm in around £19.5k of debt - credits cards & loans.......
I hope someone can help put this newbies mind at ease 🙈😂😭 x

Good advice from Sazzie23

This is the right place and its probably worth you spending a bit of time going back over older posts, you'll find lots of helpful advice. I went with StepChange, but Payplan is the next most popular DMC -so you'll be fine using them.

See this as the start of your debt free journey and look to the future - it is daunting at first, but once you start the process going you'll feel so much better for it. Do look to switch your bank account if you have any debts linked to it (including any overdraft) and get ready to contact your creditors to let them know you are in financial difficulty and seeking advice from a debt charity. They'll put your accounts on hold for 30 days initially and that'll be the start of your emergency fund.

Take your time - don't rush in (and by that I mean, don't rush to start the DMP quickly) - you'll need to build up an emergency fund because you won't have access to any more credit and with a young child, you'll want/need a bit of a financial buffer.

Pop back on with any questions you have - lots of folks on here to help.

SpagBol

Suseka97 wrote: »

It's fine to send the letters together - I sent 3 to PRA and 3 to Link and each set just went in one envelope. As you say, it saved on the 'signed for' cost of postage.

Thanks, good to know it's ok to do that, I've got quite a few that can go in the same envelopes.