DMP mutual support thread part 13 !!

Willing2Learn

natlie said:

... I am just about to start a DMP I have sent off for my paperwork and feeling nervous but relieved. I was wondering if anyone know which of these companies are typical rejecters my debts are currently with Virgin, Barclaycard, MBNA, Paypal and Tesco 

As stated above by deano1506, we always recommend that people delay their DMP start date by six months.  It gives you a bit breathing space, whilst also allowing you to build up a decent Emergency Fund (EF) before the DMP starts.  Plus, it means that your toxic accounts are removed from your three credit files so much quicker. 


You can write to your creditors, asking them to put a freeze on all your accounts, whilst you are getting advice.

deano1506

natlie said:

deano1506 said:

Hi Nat, im sure the experts will be along soon ; however i have experience of Tesco, MBNA & Barclaycard - when i started my DMP i owed about 46k over 8 creditors. I was paying about 400 per month and at the time all creditors seemed happy with that. What I wish I had done is stop paying them all completely for at least 6 months, this will enable you to save up an emergency fund, plus it will mean that the creditors will have no option but to default you. In your scenario a default is good. A default will drop off your credit file 6 years after the default date. I had to raise complaint when accounts were not defaulted which was long and stressful. So thats what i would do. I started my DMP in 2013 and i still owe 3750; but i have stopped paying them now and I have asked for valid Consumer Credit Agreements (CCA), if they cannot provide these legal documents then the debts are unenforceable in court - so I may end up paying nothing more or some as part of a full and final settlement. Anyway hope that makes sense - and good luck 

Thanks, that's very helpful. I haven't missed a payment before so the thought of it is quite scary. I do have an emergency fund which I was going to use to pay off my Virgin card - should I keep this instead? 

how much will you be paying into your DMP? you could tell your DMP provider that you want to delay your DMP for 6 months. Then say you would have 6 months of your DMP in your emergency fund - the EF could be used to pay your debts off with a settlement discount but more importantly cover you for unforeseen expenses.  

natlie

deano1506 said:

how much will you be paying into your DMP? you could tell your DMP provider that you want to delay your DMP for 6 months. Then say you would have 6 months of your DMP in your emergency fund - the EF could be used to pay your debts off with a settlement discount but more importantly cover you for unforeseen expenses.  

£370 is what SC has suggested as my monthly payment.  I have £1590 in my EF my current monthly payments on all my credit accounts are £1095  
Do I just stop paying my creditors? Should I warn them first? 
Thanks

deano1506

natlie said:

deano1506 said:

how much will you be paying into your DMP? you could tell your DMP provider that you want to delay your DMP for 6 months. Then say you would have 6 months of your DMP in your emergency fund - the EF could be used to pay your debts off with a settlement discount but more importantly cover you for unforeseen expenses.  

£370 is what SC has suggested as my monthly payment.  I have £1590 in my EF my current monthly payments on all my credit accounts are £1095  
Do I just stop paying my creditors? Should I warn them first? 
Thanks

wow that was like me all of a sudden 700 per month better off. I would tell stepchange to hold payments for 6 months and don't pay SC anything - but up to you   

sourcrates

sunshinevicky
What do you mean by delay starting the plan? Would this not then mean bailiffs would come to the house for the debts?

sorry for all the questions

Hi,

You are way overthinking things, firstly, they are not bailiffs, bailiffs can only be instructed by a court, and only after a county court judgement has been granted against you, and you don`t pay it, you are refering to debt collectors, they do not come to your house, please do some reseach on the subject, debt collectors have no more rights than you or i do, you can simply ignore them.

Under GDPR regulations, you can dictate how you want your creditors to contact you, write and ask for written contact only, its that simple.

Non payment is extreamly common for various reasons, in your case to save an EF,  and apart from the odd call or letter, nothing will happen, the worst that can happen for unsecured simple contract debts, is a CCJ, and there is a long court process beforehand, so you can avoid it, you are worrying over nothing, but its very common to react like that, as many people are unaware of the debt collection process, etc, the more you know, the easier it is to deal with.

Suseka97

sunshinevicky said:

Suseka97 said:

sunshinevicky
.......

We don’t have any joint accounts and mortgage in on his name as finances have always been seperate.
i will look into self managing but it scares me! Could I not just not tell Step Change about the credit card with my bank and then my bank account would be safe?
What do you mean by delay starting the plan? Would this not then mean bailiffs would come to the house for the debts?
sorry for all the questions

What W2L means by delaying is that by doing so you give yourself time to build up an emergency fund for those unforeseen expenses going forward - and no, you won't have bailiffs coming to you house during that timeframe.  For a bailiff to get involved your debt would have had to go to court, you'd have had to stop paying whatever judgement was made etc. etc.  There are so very many more hoops your debts would have to go through to get to that point and you'll always be in a position to stop that happening.

Anyway - back to the hear and now.  First thing to do is write to all your creditors (leaving the Nationwide CC out of it for now) telling them you are in financial difficulty due to income loss etc.  You can tell them you are seeking advice from one of the debt charities and that you'll get back to them when you are in a position to agree a suitable repayment plan.  You don't need to go into any more detail than that at this point.  Most, if not all will put your account/s on hold for at least 1 month at the outset.

The website link sent will give you all the information you need if you want to self-manage your DMP - or you can go with one of the debt charities (e.g StepChange). If you want to keep your bank account unaffected by this - my advice would be to clear the NW CC before you get into the DMP.   If you don't, then whether you self-manage or not, your bank has the 'right to offset' anyway and you might find they withdraw some of your banking privileges (such as overdraft, cheque book etc.), they may even make you switch to a basic bank account and that would make it more obvious to your husband that something is awry. 

If you hold off for the 3 - 6 months before launching into a DMP (if that's what you decide to do) then you may find that you can clear the NW CC debt without too much problem.

Thank you for this information... it is all so helpful. I think the thought of not paying anything (although by not paying anything for 3/4 months I would be able to clear NW Credit Card and have around £400/£500 in an emergency fund) scares me to death! But I guess if I bite the bullet and send all the letters to say I am in financial difficulty and seeking advice it at least gives me a bit of breathing space and then look at either self managing or using step change. 

I think my main fear is the barrage of phone calls and letters I will get .... is there a way I can stop phone calls to the home phone at least?

Yes, now's the time to take control - it takes a bit of courage for sure, but once you've done it you'll sleep all the better for it When you write to them just say that all matters pertaining to the account/s are to be dealt with in writing and ask them to remove your contact telephone numbers from their files.  Some will, some won't -but those that don't just block their number.  

sunshinevicky

Suseka97 said:

sunshinevicky said:

Suseka97 said:

sunshinevicky
.......

We don’t have any joint accounts and mortgage in on his name as finances have always been seperate.
i will look into self managing but it scares me! Could I not just not tell Step Change about the credit card with my bank and then my bank account would be safe?
What do you mean by delay starting the plan? Would this not then mean bailiffs would come to the house for the debts?
sorry for all the questions

What W2L means by delaying is that by doing so you give yourself time to build up an emergency fund for those unforeseen expenses going forward - and no, you won't have bailiffs coming to you house during that timeframe.  For a bailiff to get involved your debt would have had to go to court, you'd have had to stop paying whatever judgement was made etc. etc.  There are so very many more hoops your debts would have to go through to get to that point and you'll always be in a position to stop that happening.

Anyway - back to the hear and now.  First thing to do is write to all your creditors (leaving the Nationwide CC out of it for now) telling them you are in financial difficulty due to income loss etc.  You can tell them you are seeking advice from one of the debt charities and that you'll get back to them when you are in a position to agree a suitable repayment plan.  You don't need to go into any more detail than that at this point.  Most, if not all will put your account/s on hold for at least 1 month at the outset.

The website link sent will give you all the information you need if you want to self-manage your DMP - or you can go with one of the debt charities (e.g StepChange). If you want to keep your bank account unaffected by this - my advice would be to clear the NW CC before you get into the DMP.   If you don't, then whether you self-manage or not, your bank has the 'right to offset' anyway and you might find they withdraw some of your banking privileges (such as overdraft, cheque book etc.), they may even make you switch to a basic bank account and that would make it more obvious to your husband that something is awry. 

If you hold off for the 3 - 6 months before launching into a DMP (if that's what you decide to do) then you may find that you can clear the NW CC debt without too much problem.

Thank you for this information... it is all so helpful. I think the thought of not paying anything (although by not paying anything for 3/4 months I would be able to clear NW Credit Card and have around £400/£500 in an emergency fund) scares me to death! But I guess if I bite the bullet and send all the letters to say I am in financial difficulty and seeking advice it at least gives me a bit of breathing space and then look at either self managing or using step change. 

I think my main fear is the barrage of phone calls and letters I will get .... is there a way I can stop phone calls to the home phone at least?

Yes, now's the time to take control - it takes a bit of courage for sure, but once you've done it you'll sleep all the better for it When you write to them just say that all matters pertaining to the account/s are to be dealt with in writing and ask them to remove your contact telephone numbers from their files.  Some will, some won't -but those that don't just block their number.  

sourcrates said:

sunshinevicky
What do you mean by delay starting the plan? Would this not then mean bailiffs would come to the house for the debts?

sorry for all the questions

Hi,

You are way overthinking things, firstly, they are not bailiffs, bailiffs can only be instructed by a court, and only after a county court judgement has been granted against you, and you don`t pay it, you are refering to debt collectors, they do not come to your house, please do some reseach on the subject, debt collectors have no more rights than you or i do, you can simply ignore them.

Under GDPR regulations, you can dictate how you want your creditors to contact you, write and ask for written contact only, its that simple.

Non payment is extreamly common for various reasons, in your case to save an EF,  and apart from the odd call or letter, nothing will happen, the worst that can happen for unsecured simple contract debts, is a CCJ, and there is a long court process beforehand, so you can avoid it, you are worrying over nothing, but its very common to react like that, as many people are unaware of the debt collection process, etc, the more you know, the easier it is to deal with.

Thank you both!!! I feel like I need to do this and have realised that living without credit is the best way for me.... yes I’m scared about the future in terms of things like if I need a new car but I guess these are things I might just have to deal with and the thought of being able to sleep better and not feel so consumed with worry is winning me over now!

i think I’m going to send letters to stop payments next week and some for 5 months no payments to build an EF and pay off Nationwide CC... then at that point decide if I dare go down the self managed route or if I need StepChange to do it for me!

thank you so much and I’m sure I will be back with more questions in the coming weeks!! X

natlie

Another question sorry, I receive Universal credits but its not the same amount every month due to variable income, how do I evidence this when I send info to SC? Thanks Nat

TuxedoCat

Took a break from paying all of my creditors after I cancelled PayPlan last year. All but one of my creditors have defaulted me, which also happens to be for my largest singular debt, over £4000. They are applying late payment/AP markers and have said the ICO guidelines are just that - guidelines - and they are not required to apply a default and certainly not at a customers request. They also advised because I am seeking to set up a repayment plan that it isn’t right to default me. So I take from that that they want me to ignore them and never pay another penny as I will be treated better?

Given that my payment will be around £33 down from £150 I am shocked as I’m going to be suffering the after effects for some time on my credit file. I’ve logged a complaint and requested final written response to allow me to go to the Financial Ombudsman Service. 

DebtHurricane

JD Williams (fashion world/ jacamo) are the same. They’ve refused to default despite my pleas. Yet they’ve sold on the debt. It’s disgusting