DMP mutual support thread part 13 !!

sourcrates

cheesypuff wrote: »

Hi
Thanks for replying sorry for my ignorance but what are CCA’s? How would I go about doing this? I have just noticed it will actually be 10 years in May. Yes I have a house and car they won’t come after these will they?:(

Its a request for a copy of your credit agreements from your creditors, they must possess these in order to obtain payment from you, a CCA request is done under sec 77/79 consumer credit act, and it is one of your statutory rights.

If they cannot provide what the act says they should, the debt will become unenforceable, which means either, you can just walk away, or get substantially better discount offers to settle.

Information and template letter here :

https://www.nationaldebtline.org/EW/sampleletters/Pages/Information-about-your-agreement-under-the-Consumer-Credit-Act-%28sole-name%29.aspx

cheesypuff

Sourcrates would it be ok to send you a PM please?

dynomot

Hello and a belated happy New Year to you all !

Just thought I'd pop in and say how things are going with my SC DMP. Brilliantly and much to my relief all is OK which is a far cry to how I felt in September 2017. All my creditors have defaulted and in September my biggest debt, Barclaycard, has been passed to PRA Group who sent me a letter and SC told me they'd heard from them when I rang and all was well.

I thank you all who gave me initial advice over a year ago now.

You do have to box clever and remember that your creditors cannot "flog a dead horse" you make the offer (or in my case StepChange did !) and they basically accept it after showing your expenditure and income. Indeed I still say big up to SC they are and have been marvelous.

Two mistakes I made when starting was my complete honesty, and not setting up an emergency fund. I did struggle for the first four or five months a little, but things are easier since I stopped smoking, my choice, and my DMP review included larger house insurance, and an increase in energy payments, so my monthly payments went down. This has allowed me to start saving slightly and making an emergency fund. Trust me you need one, our car that my wife relies on for work died at MOT time, fortunately my mother in law came to our rescue (it's a good job we always got on !) she actually bought us a decent car to replace the old one, I do realise other forum members may not be so blessed with such good relatives and good fortune, I cannot stress enough how important having a cushion in place before you start your DMP is.

To anyone like me who just strayed here to this corner of the internet looking for advice and help - you've found it. We who post here have all been sick with worry and fear until we decided enough was enough and bit the bullet and sort help. This place will show you even the biggest debt can be dealt with. The people here (sourcrates deserves mentioning by name here) are fab.

From nearly £24,000 and ten creditors to just over £20,000 and two will be paid off in April. The debt is shrinking and, not to put too fine a point on it I feel my life, and certainly my marriage has been saved.

[Deleted User]

dynomot wrote: »

Hello and a belated happy New Year to you all !

Just thought I'd pop in and say how things are going with my SC DMP. Brilliantly and much to my relief all is OK which is a far cry to how I felt in September 2017. All my creditors have defaulted and in September my biggest debt, Barclaycard, has been passed to PRA Group who sent me a letter and SC told me they'd heard from them when I rang and all was well.

I thank you all who gave me initial advice over a year ago now.

You do have to box clever and remember that your creditors cannot "flog a dead horse" you make the offer (or in my case StepChange did !) and they basically accept it after showing your expenditure and income. Indeed I still say big up to SC they are and have been marvelous.

Two mistakes I made when starting was my complete honesty, and not setting up an emergency fund. I did struggle for the first four or five months a little, but things are easier since I stopped smoking, my choice, and my DMP review included larger house insurance, and an increase in energy payments, so my monthly payments went down. This has allowed me to start saving slightly and making an emergency fund. Trust me you need one, our car that my wife relies on for work died at MOT time, fortunately my mother in law came to our rescue (it's a good job we always got on !) she actually bought us a decent car to replace the old one, I do realise other forum members may not be so blessed with such good relatives and good fortune, I cannot stress enough how important having a cushion in place before you start your DMP is.

To anyone like me who just strayed here to this corner of the internet looking for advice and help - you've found it. We who post here have all been sick with worry and fear until we decided enough was enough and bit the bullet and sort help. This place will show you even the biggest debt can be dealt with. The people here (sourcrates deserves mentioning by name here) are fab.

From nearly £24,000 and ten creditors to just over £20,000 and two will be paid off in April. The debt is shrinking and, not to put too fine a point on it I feel my life, and certainly my marriage has been saved.

What a wonderfully uplifting post:T. I'm so happy that things are working out se well for you. It's always incredibly useful for others starting out in a state of fear and uncertainty to know that there really is light at the end of the tunnel however dim and far away it may seem to them at the start. Thanks so much for coming back and sharing your experiences:beer:


Like you and I suspect a lot of others who hadn't discovered this wonderful thread and the invaluable advice on it I made the same mistakes of not having an EF in place and also paying more than I could sensibly afford in the early days of my DMP. It's uncanny how essential things like cars and cookers conk out or die and need replacing just when everything seems to running smoothly at the start of a DMP. I learned the hard way about the need for a savings cushion:eek:. I can't stress enough to people the need to have one before starting a DMP.



Good luck to you and your wife for the rest of your debt journey. Let us know how you get on:beer:

Australiana

Hello forum!

I'd really appreciate your advice. Last week, exhausted and overwhelmed, I went onto the Stepchange website and did their online self-assessment. It recommended I apply for a DMP, and I promptly printed off the forms and sent them off. I have now read through the threads on here and found all the information very useful. However, it has made me slightly more confused about what to so in my situation!

My situation is a little different, as I have moved countries three times in the last 6 years, and I have debts in all three countries. Stepchange say they can only help me with my UK debts, so I entered the compulsory payments for my debts abroad as part of my expenses on their website.

My debts in the UK are:
Unsecured personal Loan 1: £4322
Unsecured personal Loan 2: £895
Barclaycard: £765
Overdraft: £2571
Total: £8553

My Contractual monthly repayments on the above come to £463/month. Stepchange calculated that I can only afford £333 and this is what they will offer as the payment arrangement to my creditors. They say I will be debt free in 2 years. In addition to the above I owe about £7735 to a government student loan in Australia, and about £5400 to a student loan in the USA, which is a private student loan with rules similar to any other unsecured personal loan.I also have an Amex change card which I use for my day to day expenses and then pay off in full each month. I did not include this in the debt amount as I have to pay not back in full every month regardless (it's not a credit card).

None of my loans are in default yet and I am only late on one payment this month. However - I have dug myself a big hole in the past 5 months and have only managed to stay afloat because of extending my credit constantly. This financial hole is largely the result of having to go back to Australia (my home country) four times in the last 10 months as my father had terminal cancer and subsequently passed away. It has been a terrible time emotionally and on top of that I have had these money issues to worry about. In general, I have been struggling with debt for 12 years and have only managed to stay afloat by begging money from family when the creditors called and/or getting financial institutions to loan me more money. I don't want to do that again. I want to be debt free once and for all, which is what led me to the Stepchange website in the first place.

Here is my confusion: on this forum people say it's better to wait for your debts to default before doing the credit arrangement? How long will that take and how scared should I be to do that?

Second, given the amount I owe in the UK and the fact that Stepchange thinks I only need to cut my payments by about 100 pounds/month to pay everything off in 2 years, is it worth trying to avoid the DMP (and therefore avoid the hit on my credit report)? Given the reasons why I am unable to pay my bills right now (my father's death) I wondered whether it was worth me calling Barclays etc, explaining the situtation and asking for a brief moratorium on my payments (say three months) so I can get back on top of my financial situation. I will also be getting a bit of extra money in the next few months (freelance invoices coming in on my side hustle) and I wonder whether I should tell them that and just beg for a breather.

At the same time, filling in the DMP forms and feeling like I had some control over this felt so good. I also fear that if I get a few months' breather, the situation will just rear its head again (I am very disorganised with money). I am tempted just to do the DMP and forget the hit to my credit report.

Any advice much appreciated!

lulabelle01

I’m having a bit of a wobble today with regards to my DMP. I know I’m doing the right thing because I couldn’t keep robbing Peter to pay Paul but I’ve just checked my credit record and seeing the cold hard truth that it’s now a poor rating and I still haven’t had any of my cards defaulted is pretty depressing. That and the fact I’ve tried to upgrade my phone contract (sim only again) and I don’t think it’s been accepted is a bit of a kick in the teeth. Tomorrow’s another day I guess.

Harveyhelp

Hi all

Hope everyone is well. I have been paying on my DMP since September and so far things have been going well with little noise which step change said may have been due to the high amount I’m paying back each month. However last month it took a wobble. Capital One who originally accepted my payment offer have now started saying it was a temporary offer for just 3 months. Step change have contacted them to inform them it’s longer but in the mean time they have re started interest and slapped on late payment fees. Problem is the interest is more than I’m paying and now the debt is going up instead of down. Anyone had this situation?

Thanks

DMP_Tiger

lulabelle01 wrote: »

I’m having a bit of a wobble today with regards to my DMP. I know I’m doing the right thing because I couldn’t keep robbing Peter to pay Paul but I’ve just checked my credit record and seeing the cold hard truth that it’s now a poor rating and I still haven’t had any of my cards defaulted is pretty depressing. That and the fact I’ve tried to upgrade my phone contract (sim only again) and I don’t think it’s been accepted is a bit of a kick in the teeth. Tomorrow’s another day I guess.

DMP's can be depressing at times but compared to the stress of trying to keep payments up to date and constantly not having enough money to live on they are fantastic! As you say, you know you are doing the right thing because you couldn't carry on as you were.

With a DMP, you can live a much better life and not worry about money all of the time but the debt is still there and still has to be repaid so it's natural to have a little wobble every now and then - we all do!

ash28

Just thought I'd give a little update on my progress so far...


While it seems both CCAs are uneforceable (Barclaycard and Capital One), I've decided to go ahead with a self managed DMP as I don't think I could cope with the stress of anything else at the moment. However, unenforceability is something I might think about further down the road.


The DMP side has been quite straightforward and done with the help of the NEDCAB website, both creditors have accepted my monthly payment offers and both have said they will default immediately...Capital One have sent an account number to pay in to and Barclaycard have sent a standing order form to fill in and give to the bank.


I said in an earlier post that I had contacted Canada Square Operations regarding the Barclaycard which I thought had originally been an Egg card...the result - a cheque for just shy of £4k will be winging its way as I had PPI and didn't even know!!! So I have an emergency fund!


For any newbies posting, I found the advice and help on here amazing, from tweaking your expenditure to make sure every spare penny doesn't go to your creditors to a line in your correspondence telling them not to ring you.....I can't thank everyone enough.

Willing2Learn

ash28 wrote: »

… I said in an earlier post that I had contacted Canada Square Operations regarding the Barclaycard which I thought had originally been an Egg card...the result - a cheque for just shy of £4k will be winging its way as I had PPI and didn't even know!!! So I have an emergency fund!...

That is fantastic news and a major result!! What a way to start a new year!