Advice before starting DMP

Floss

Sam2018 said:

...  I did wonder if I changed me phone number on all my accounts now to a different number and then leave that phone turned off for a while - or would the creditors still keep my old number and try ringing it ? 

I did this - it's worth it for the peace of mind. Just get a PAYG sim, put into an old phone, update the accounts & turn it off. 

I also set up a new email address & put that onto all my accounts and now I can choose when / if I read those emails. It keeps them out of my personal email inbox 😉

Floss

Sam2018 said:

And thank you all - just not being judged or ridiculed has made me feel a little better 

No judgement or ridicule - you'll find the majority of posters have been in similar situations at some point.

NeverendingDMP

Hiya just to say you can either ignore all phonecalls by just not picking up or better still in the long run is too inform them you no longer give permission to be contacted by phone. And request letters or emails only. You could change your number but that's an inconvenience to you as you will then have to tell everyone, gp, dentist, etc etc which can a pain. 
Loads of us have been in lots of debt and we are all working through it. You are not alone. We have remortgaged in our house since our defaults. We just went online with our current provider picked a new rate and carried on as normal.  And the rates were similar to what we would have got by shopping around. Our remortgage is due again this year(also dreading the rate rise). Good luck with it all !

RAS

Get a new nuisance phone ns email address or just tell them all comms much be by snail mail.

It's important to understand that all are likely to be pre-programmed by computer. The person who picks up if you answer hasn't made the decision to harass you, it is just a programmed call with a specific starting script. 

It is however important to keep reading letters. For one thing, by law the creditor has to send you certain warning letters, so they will demand full repayment of a debt just before issuing the default etc. You will get default letters as well, which should trigger a small payment by you if possible.

Sam2018

Grumpelstiltskin said:

There is no need to panic, you will find when you stop paying ( I hope you have canceled the payments ) nothing terrible will happen. It can sometimes take quite a few weeks before your creditors even notice.

You want to get a different current account as soon as you can and save up as much as you can until you are ready to start your self managed DMP.

OK you might get letters from your creditors listing out what they could do, just because they could do things doesn't mean they will. The letters are worded to try and frighten you into paying them, don't panic if you get any of these letters come back on here for reassurance.

Thank you (sorry didn’t see your reply yesterday)  have cancelled the 2 direct debits coming out end of December and will work my way through cancelling the others for January. 

I think because I’ve never not paid anything, it’s just making me extremely anxious, but going to get it all cancelled this week so I can hopefully relax over Christmas. 

Sam2018

Floss said:

Sam2018 said:

...  I did wonder if I changed me phone number on all my accounts now to a different number and then leave that phone turned off for a while - or would the creditors still keep my old number and try ringing it ? 

I did this - it's worth it for the peace of mind. Just get a PAYG sim, put into an old phone, update the accounts & turn it off. 

I also set up a new email address & put that onto all my accounts and now I can choose when / if I read those emails. It keeps them out of my personal email inbox 😉

Thank you - going to pop out tomorrow and pick up a new payg SIM card and charge an old phone up and then get all the phone numbers changed before any of them realise what’s going on. 

More than happy to deal with them all in writing and emails, just can’t take the stress of my phone going off continually. Will block any numbers that do try my current number aswell. 

sourcrates

What you have to keep, forefront in your thinking, is that it doesn't matter how many collection letters are sent, or how many automated phone calls you get, none of those can force you to pay a debt, only a court can do that.

So unless the letter is a letter before action (which you will not get at this stage) you can just basically ignore anything else, no amount of creditor protestation can change that fact.

A creditor will go through the standard collection process regardless, this is why we have debt collectors, they all sing from the same hymn sheet, its only much farther down the line when debts have been sold that you need to engage, as debt purchasing companies will go to court if ignored for any length of time.

You are miles away from that scenario yet.

Sam2018

NeverendingDMP said:

Hiya just to say you can either ignore all phonecalls by just not picking up or better still in the long run is too inform them you no longer give permission to be contacted by phone. And request letters or emails only. You could change your number but that's an inconvenience to you as you will then have to tell everyone, gp, dentist, etc etc which can a pain. 
Loads of us have been in lots of debt and we are all working through it. You are not alone. We have remortgaged in our house since our defaults. We just went online with our current provider picked a new rate and carried on as normal.  And the rates were similar to what we would have got by shopping around. Our remortgage is due again this year(also dreading the rate rise). Good luck with it all !

Thank you. I’m so glad I came here and found such lovely people who are going through the same, or have done. And that’s good news re mortgage as that’s my partners only concern. We are on 2.2% interest with mortgage, so lord only knows how much that will increase. But not even worrying about that now! 

RAS said:

Get a new nuisance phone ns email address or just tell them all comms much be by snail mail.

It's important to understand that all are likely to be pre-programmed by computer. The person who picks up if you answer hasn't made the decision to harass you, it is just a programmed call with a specific starting script. 

It is however important to keep reading letters. For one thing, by law the creditor has to send you certain warning letters, so they will demand full repayment of a debt just before issuing the default etc. You will get default letters as well, which should trigger a small payment by you if possible.

Yes, definitely changing the phone number they have for me and then they can just write or email. 

I am right in thinking though, don’t contact them until they actually default the accounts? As reading through the ‘DMP Mutual support thread’ and keep seeing mention of “holding letters” although might be out of date info now as only upto 2018 (page 68 of 513) 

RAS

One of the "improvements" since 2018 is that debt collectors are supposed to put affordability first and since Covid to be tolerant when people have short rough patches. 

The downside of the new approach is that they take much longer to default debts and any engagement will delay it further. One OP ended up asking them to stop faffing around and default the debt so they could start making payments.

A few creditors also use the affordability issue to try and pry a statement of affairs from people who want to keep their affairs private, as they "can't accept a payment that's not affordable". That might be the case, or they might be weighing up pushing for a bigger payment. Takes determination some times to find the account into which to pay.

Sam2018

sourcrates said:

What you have to keep, forefront in your thinking, is that it doesn't matter how many collection letters are sent, or how many automated phone calls you get, none of those can force you to pay a debt, only a court can do that.

So unless the letter is a letter before action (which you will not get at this stage) you can just basically ignore anything else, no amount of creditor protestation can change that fact.

A creditor will go through the standard collection process regardless, this is why we have debt collectors, they all sing from the same hymn sheet, its only much farther down the line when debts have been sold that you need to engage, as debt purchasing companies will go to court if ignored for any length of time.

You are miles away from that scenario yet.

Thank you so much, you give such good advice and really helping me to keep relatively calm over here. 

RAS said:

One of the "improvements" since 2018 is that debt collectors are supposed to put affordability first and since Covid to be tolerant when people have short rough patches. 

The downside of the new approach is that they take much longer to default debts and any engagement will delay it further. One OP ended up asking them to stop faffing around and default the debt so they could start making payments.

A few creditors also use the affordability issue to try and pry a statement of affairs from people who want to keep their affairs private, as they "can't accept a payment that's not affordable". That might be the case, or they might be weighing up pushing for a bigger payment. Takes determination some times to find the account into which to pay.

Well mine isn’t a short rough patch, I’ve let it go on far too long. Wish I’d done something during Covid now but stupidly carried on and now it’s an even worse mess. 

But …. An up to page 463 on the DMP Mutual Support thread and have a lot of answers so feeling a lot more like I’m going to be able to do this !