DMP mutual support thread part 13 !!

happytimesahead

lillypoo said:

I don't know what's BEST BUT my credit card defaulted abd was handed over to wescot to manage. They rang texted and wrote to me every few days for about six weeks, one letter had a very " we know where you live" threatening tone. I didn't answer or respond to any of their communications and they then wrote to me saying they were sending the debt back to the cc company. That was before Christmas and I've heard nothing since. So if you want to build up a bit more of an emergency fund I'd say you can safely ignore wescot for a couple of months ...from my own experience.

Thanks @lillypoo

I think I might do the same and see what happens, keep building up the emergency fund like you say, but just keep an eye on the letters. I’m thinking if they sell the debt on eventually this might be more promising for settlement offers later down the line! 

The wescot website is also very clunky to navigate compared to some of the other DCAs so far which have been much easier to use! 

sourcrates

happytimesahead said:

Hi all,

My Santander credit card has now finally defaulted and the debt has been passed to Wescot to manage on their behalf. 

I’m just wondering would it be potentially better, in the long run, to hold out longer and not commence any payments to Wescot, and wait for the debt to actually be sold on, rather than just passed to a collection agency to manage on Santander’s behalf? Just thinking in terms of potential future settlement offers.

Thanks in advance for any thoughts! 

Just to add to the above advice, debt collection is the "bread and butter" work of any collection company, they all  work in a similar way, they attempt collection of accounts assigned to them, on behalf of their clients.

But this assignment is not a legal one, its what`s known as an "equitable assignment".

This basically means Wescott can ask you to pay the balance outstanding, but cannot force you to do so by taking any kind of action through the courts, this is because they do not own the debt.

What normally happens is Wescott will go through their selection of collection letters with you, and if you do not bite, they will just return the account to the client.

It may then rinse and repeat with another collection company, or it may go quiet for a time, and Wescott may try again, or the debt will be sold, or you may never hear from them again, it depends on how well they assess the likelihood of obtaining payment from you, likely or unlikely, as to what action will then follow.

happytimesahead

sourcrates said:

happytimesahead said:

Hi all,

My Santander credit card has now finally defaulted and the debt has been passed to Wescot to manage on their behalf. 

I’m just wondering would it be potentially better, in the long run, to hold out longer and not commence any payments to Wescot, and wait for the debt to actually be sold on, rather than just passed to a collection agency to manage on Santander’s behalf? Just thinking in terms of potential future settlement offers.

Thanks in advance for any thoughts! 

Just to add to the above advice, debt collection is the "bread and butter" work of any collection company, they all  work in a similar way, they attempt collection of accounts assigned to them, on behalf of their clients.

But this assignment is not a legal one, its what`s known as an "equitable assignment".

This basically means Wescott can ask you to pay the balance outstanding, but cannot force you to do so by taking any kind of action through the courts, this is because they do not own the debt.

What normally happens is Wescott will go through their selection of collection letters with you, and if you do not bite, they will just return the account to the client.

It may then rinse and repeat with another collection company, or it may go quiet for a time, and Wescott may try again, or the debt will be sold, or you may never hear from them again, it depends on how well they assess the likelihood of obtaining payment from you, likely or unlikely, as to what action will then follow.

Thank you, that’s really helpful to understand and put it all into perspective! 

lillypoo

Thanks from me also, @sourcrates

agentblackcat

Hi Everyone, also relatively new,. Read through the mountain of pages and Sourcrates advice. I cancelled all my direct debits to my creditors in Dec. So now just waiting and saving. First couple are threatening defaults now, zopa and MBNA. I'm hoping to hold out a few more months before setting anything up in terms of repayment. Any advice on whether I'll be able to do this or not ? 


m in Scotland so will be going down the route of a DAS. I must say I like some others have been so reassured, after years of worrying, not wanting to log in to my accounts etc. I really wish I had come across all this advice a few years back. 

ravergirl1992

Wow this thread has honestly been a game changer for me. Thank you so much for the advice given, it’s really changed my life. I was in a debt spiral and kept borrowing to pay off old debts and making things worse for myself. My repayments became completely unsustainable and it was a great source of anxiety and stress. 

I am currently building up an emergency fund (not a great one at that) after cancelling my DDs and watching the letters roll in. Some creditors have been more vocal than others, weirdly the one with the smallest balance has been the most persistent. I have defaulted on most of my accounts now and have set up token payments to two of them that have been sold on (currently on Mat leave but want to show willing until I’m back at work on full pay).

The one that is proving difficult to know how to handle is Amex, which is being dealt with by AIC. I have seen a few responses on here suggesting they just deal with the account on Amex’s behalf and if they don’t get anywhere with you they pass it back, not sure how true that will be in my case. Amex is still not showing as being defaulted on my credit file. My question is do I liaise with AIC and offer them a token payment or ignore them like the others? It’s unclear from the correspondence whether they own the debt and I don’t want to make any payments to them until they’ve defaulted me really but have also read they can be quite nasty, threatening court action and such. Advice greatly appreciated as always.

sourcrates

@ravergirl1992

Do AIC refer to "their client" at all in any of their correspondence?

It`s quite likely to be an equitable assignment, rather than a legal one, if the debt had been sold, they have a statutory duty to write and inform you of such, if you haven`t had the letter, then its probably not been sold.

ravergirl1992

Thank you @sourcrates in which case would you ignore until defaulted?

sourcrates

ravergirl1992 said:

Thank you @sourcrates in which case would you ignore until defaulted?

Assuming the above is correct, you haven`t said either way, then yes.

Jessica32

Partner on a DMP via stepchange, had a letter setting him for a CCJ with lowell, can't even remember who the original creditor was tbh. All DMP payments being made, frustrated with this and not sure what we do, do we try and cobble the money together and pay it off? Really keen for him not to get a CCJ on his credit file obvs. We're ringing stepchange tomorrow but wondered if anyone had advice on here?