Self managed DMP

Lj1990

Hi ive been a lurker on these forums for a couple of years now and reading other peoples posts inspired me to start a DMP through payplan 18 months ago which is all going well. My problem is my 2 biggest creditors (virgin & TSB) havent defaulted my account and are still charging interest dispite me contacting them time after time asking to freeze it. All my other creditors are quite small in comparison and i was thinking about canceling my plan with payplan and snowballing these smaller debts while paying Virgin and TSB nothing until these smaller creditors are paid off which will take around 6 months and then starting a new self managed dmp with Virgin and TSB.

Does this sound realistic or am i living in a dream world and would this cause more trouble than its worth with the bigger creditors? Thanks in advance

Willing2Learn

Hi and welcome to the forum Lj1990

How have Virgin and TSB marked your credit files?

Lj1990

Hi thanks for the quick reply. They are both marked as AR which was my thinking of trying to get them to default. However im abit nervous of what would happen if i just stopped paying them completely.

Willing2Learn

If you withhold payment from both the Virgin and TSB accounts, then your DMP payment arrangements with them will both fall into arrears. And since guidance says that an account should be defaulted once it is 3-6 months in arrears, they should both be defaulted...

I would be tempted though to make a written complaint. That you are being treated unfairly. That by them marking your account as AR has caused you detriment when compared to someone who makes no effort to pay and whose account would be defaulted once it had fallen 3-6 months in arrears. I'd add the request for the accounts to be defaulted, backdated to when the account was 3-6 months in arrears.

Or have you already made an official written complaint to both of them? You said you had contacted them 'time after time', but I'm not sure if that means you'd made a written complaint.

Lj1990

Hi no ive never made a written complaint ive only contacted them through email to which i get told its been passed to the relevant department and then hear nothing. Would a written complaint get me further?

Willing2Learn

Lj1990 wrote: »

Hi no ive never made a written complaint ive only contacted them through email to which i get told its been passed to the relevant department and then hear nothing. Would a written complaint get me further?

Yeah. If you make a complaint, then that carries the 'threat' of the complaint being escalated to the ICO should it not be upheld.

You would be relying on official guidance though. And because it is only guidance, it means that they do not have to comply, although they must have due regard to it.

If it were me, I would make the complaint. Other members have sometimes been successful in getting their complaints upheld in this way. But there are also cases where the complaint has failed. It is 50/50 basically. But like I always say, "if you don't ask, you don't get!"

Lj1990

Thanks for your quick replies! I will get on with a complaint and hopefully they will get defaulted.