F&F offers, DEALING WITH REPLIES

fallen2k8

Hi there,
New to the forum, forgive me if I've posted into the wrong place.

I found an abundance of useful information here on the MSE forums, really appreciate this community and a shout-out to sourcrates for his knowledge.

Background info
I and my wife have managed to rack up approx. £32k debt over 11 lenders, these date pre-2008, so they're quite old now. All of the debts are unsecured and have been sold on to DCA's. I'm on a DMP with MoneyPlus, whom charge fees for managing our debt management plan. They also charge ridiculous fees to settle debts through them. Long story short, enough was enough and I have managed to get a family friend who is willing to clear off our debts but at 25% of the current amount owed. I chose this figure because Cabot sent me an offer of clearing the debt at 30% previously, which I could not accept. So I know they're willing to go low (especially because they buy the debt for dirt cheap). For the most part of the last decade I have been paying token payments to these creditors (a few pounds a month) and I am not in any position to remortgage/sell because of my age/health and financial situation.

I sent off 11 F&F's in total, each with a budget sheet (made my MoneyPlus) and a list of all my creditors. This was done last week and so far have only received 2 replies.

Cabot has replied with the same offer (70% reduction) - it's as if they just reprinted the offer they sent me last time and sent it to me again, should I negotiate for a 75% reduction? since its one of my larger debts.

PRA group have come back to me saying they cannot accept my offer of 75% reduction and can offer only a 30% reduction valid until next month. We have limited capital available to clear off all the debts, so I cannot accept a 30% reduction. I do not know where to go from here because Ideally, I was hoping for at least a 70% reduction to make things work. Any advice with PRA?

I was thinking of sending CCA requests to all my creditors (mainly PRA) to put myself in a better negotiating position and then telling MoneyPlus to stop payments until this request is satisfied, however I do not know if that is the best course of action as I don't want to mess up the 'balance', shall we say.

I would be grateful if anyone with experience here can advise. Cheers!

January2015

Definitely CCA all your debts.

Regarding responses to F&Fs these can take several weeks sometimes. Frustrating, but that's how it goes. You just need to be patient.

I don't have any other advice, except to say ditch the fee paying DMP provider asap - probably not what you want to hear, but I shudder at the thought of how much you've already paid them.... money that could have gone towards clearing your debts.

fatbelly

Totally agree with the above.

We will charge you a monthly, fee being the lower of £44.50 or 49% of your monthly payment, from your first month until your DMP completes or is cancelled...

...we will charge you a one-off arrangement fee of £299

I'm even wondering about a complaint re their fees...

fallen2k8

Thanks for the responses. I'm not too sure how to go about the CCA route.

Do I send off the CCA requests, then tell Money Plus to hold off payments to them until further notice? just in case some of the CCA requests are satisfied I can then resume the token payments until I re-adjust my F&F and get it accepted. Please advise.

Cheers!

Suseka97

Okay, firstly you need to ditch Money Plus - that's a must do and take control of your DMP yourself. Do you have to give them notice? If so do that, if not then tell them you'll be handling things from now on or after the next payment run. Whatever works for you.

Whilst you're doing that, send off your CCA requests - don't expect them to respond quickly, lots of us experience several months in delays. But that's good, because during that time you can just stop all payments (but you can probably only do that if you are self-managing). I can't see MP letting you or wanting you to stop payments (they then don't get their monthly fee).

Wait to see what the responses are from the CCAs and then come back for more advice. Do pop over to the DMP Mutual Support Thread and search on CCA requests. Lots of us have gone down that route with varying success, but you'll get a sense of what to expect and how to handle those responses.

fallen2k8

The issue is that I have already sent off the f&f's, maybe I should have sent the CCA requests first

I have had 3 responses so far and it has been just over a week since I sent over the letters, received a response from IDEM today and they have accepted my offer for a 75% reduction!

I was thinking if any DCA that responds back with a ridiculous counter offer (e.g. PRA group), I will then resend another letter asking them to reconsider that offer and provide an expiry date of the offer etc along with a CCA request in the same envelope! How does that sound?

As for MoneyPlus, I'll keep it going until I've got more offers coming through so that I can cancel it and the get the debts settled.

sourcrates

Hi,

You appear to of gone about this in the wrong order, however, if you are happy to settle at the amount agreed, then that’s fine.

All is not lost with regard to the rest though, just because you make an offer to settle, it doesn’t mean you have to follow through with it.

In your position, this is what I would do, you no longer need money plus, end your relationship with them straight away, clear the decks so to speak.

Then, get your CCA requests sent off, all accounts automatically go on hold, all accounts go temporarily unenforceable, see what comes back from your creditors.

Law of averages says some of them may be unable to comply with your requests, those that can supply compliant paperwork, reiterate your offer to them, usually they will still be willing to do a deal.

Any that cannot comply, well.......it’s up to you how you deal with them.

fallen2k8

Much appreciated for the info Sourcrates, ill take that route from now on.

I have prepared a "reconsider my F&F offer" letter for when it may be needed, can anyone please check it and maybe give some tips & improvements:

"Dear Sir/Madam

Account No: xxxxxxx

We are writing in regards to the money which you are claiming on the above account.

We can confirm we had received your letter requesting a settlement of £xxxx on the (Date of receiving the letter).

We acknowledge this offer, however, we are not in the position to accept this offer.

Enclosed is a copy of our audited financial statement completed by our DMP Practioner, MoneyPlus as proof of insufficient funds. It clearly shows that it will take approximately xxx years to repay the owed amount based on our current financial situation.

As a result of this, we can only put forward a set amount of £xxxx which will be raised through a family friend. We would like to make it clear that this is a fixed amount and is not subject to negotiation.
As you may know, we have 11 debts in total with 7 creditors amounting to a total debt of £xx,xxx. Our family friend is willing to offer a fixed amount of £8,000 which is to be split equally amongst the 11 debts. This value of £8,000 is unnegotiable. Of the 7 creditors, two have recently accepted our settlement offer.

Once again, we are able to only offer you specifically a fixed amount of £xxxx. This offer will be withdrawn by our family friend on the 5th of November 2018 and will not be available again. If you choose to reject this offer then we will continue to proceed with our monthly instalments of £x through MoneyPlus. And as mentioned previously this means it would take approximately xxx years to repay the owed amount based on our current financial situation.

We need to know the outcome of your decision as soon as possible, as reiterated before this offer is very time-limited and our friend will not make payments unless the offer is accepted.

If you accept this offer, please confirm that you will mark our credit reference agency files to show that the above account has been paid and closed.

We look forward to hearing from you.

Yours faithfully,"

redux

I'd say either shorten that to about a third of its length, or don't bother with it for now.

Maybe a quick phone call to say thank you for the offer, and tru to explore whether they can go down any more.

But anyway, there isn't much difference between 25 and 30%, only a couple of hundred quid on that one.

And stop talking, either on here or in the letter, about continuing with MoneyPlus. That's a steep set of charges fatbelly quoted, taking potentially half the money themselves.

fatbelly

I agree with the above completely.

If you send that letter you will just annoy them unnecessarily as you are telling them that your creditors will not be treated equally, and that you will not necessarily be paying offers that you make.

You say that you 'received a response from IDEM today and they have accepted my offer for a 75% reduction!' If you offered them 25% and they accepted it, you must pay that. It's a good deal.

As for the others if you have chosen to go in at 25% then you either stick to that or go up. Do not tell creditors that you are offering others better deals, even if you are.

You can, however play one off against another - 'IDEM have accepted 25%. We'd like you to do the same'

You say you have 32k debt and 8k to play with. You've gone in at your top offer and so left nothing to negotiate. But that's 25% and you should see this round of offers out now.

Ditch moneyplus. I think there are grounds to complain, even though you signed up for their terms. They will not want you to refer them to FOS, even though FOS may well side with them. CAB has outline guidance here

https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/debt-and-money/debt-solutions/debt-management-plans/complaints-about-debt-management-plans/complaining-about-debt-management-plan-providers/

fatbelly

These are the fees charged by Gregory Pennington (still bad but better than yours)

A management fee will be charged of 18.5% of your regular payment to the Debt Management Plan (DMP) (this could be every four weeks or monthly depending what suits you best and when you receive your regular income), and is subject to a minimum of £38.50

Work out the difference between the two and ask for a refund