Help! How do I get CC company to freeze interest?

chops05

My other half has got a Virgin credit card which he has had for several years. He was making regular payments and using the card up until they changed the interest rate and now the interest each month and the minimum payment is more than we can afford to pay. Also because they put the interest up he is now over his cc limit of £2,500 by £150. He hasn't used the card for almost a year.

He contacted Virgin back in May to inform them that he has become unemployed, we could not afford to pay the amount they wanted each month and asked for the interest to be frozen. Not once did they attempt to help in any way and just bombarded us with phone calls and letters telling him to pay up. He still paid £100 per month even though he was not working just so that this would reduce the amount outstanding. With the interest that was added every month plus late payment charges of £12 (can we claim these back?) this has now made the outstanding amount even higher??!!??

We have now borrowed some money off a family member and offered to pay off most of the debt which they have refused and basically said that they will take my other half to court and force him to pay all of the amount in one go!

I was wondering if anyone has got any ideas on how to tackle the issue of getting the interest frozen so that the payment we actually make will reduce the debt.

Zebedee69

Try again but this time make a organised offer of repayment.

http://www.adviceguide.org.uk/index/life/debt/help_with_debt.htm#making_offers_to_creditors_yourself

Another way might be to ask them to put the interest rate back down. If you ask all lovely and sweet they might do it. Mind you if the debt is that close to the wire that an interest rate change defines you being able to pay it back then its probably a good idea to try and make a payment plan to start sorting it out.

I think if they accept an offer (which they normally do) then they will honour it for 6 months to a year. After which they have a check on it and make adjustments.

Hope this helps. You might want to visit your local cab if this seems a little difficult.

Good Luck!

chops05

Thanks for the reply and the link

As all contact with virgin has so far been done by phone I am now going to put it all in writing to them and enclose a breakdown of our outgoings - they did ask for this last week and my other half went through it with them. They then came back to us and said that we are not in financial difficulties and we can afford to make the minimum payments!! So if we make the minimum payments how is the debt ever going to go down if the interest is almost the minimum payment every month :mad::mad:.

I have been in touch with the CCCS and they have been really helpful and sent me a self help pack which I will fill in if the letter I am compiling to Virgin has no effect!