DMP 9k owed - Need help

s12c

JadedAngel88 said:

Can't help on the dmp/debt but regarding your bed. I recently purchased a mattress and bed frame from eBay for £120, (frame was £40, mattress was £80) not expensive and more comfortable than the bed I had previously. 

Just an idea that these things don't have to cost hundreds and once things are better on the financial front you could buy a better bed.

Edited to add: it was new not used btw. The frame was seconds but was perfect.

Thank you - this is useful! I will try and pick up some overtime soon - just need to wait for the busy period and then I should be able to resolve this

s12c

sourcrates said:

@DisabledDan has a point, and its one method we advocate on the forum occasionally.

The nuclear option, as described above, frighten the life out of them all by stopping payments, get your bed sorted, and anything else you need to buy, these debts are all non priority, last on the list to be paid, type debts, don`t lose any sleep over them.

Allow everything to default, save your emergency/settlement fund up, over time they will all go through their standard debt collection letters with you, ranging from "we have been trying to contact you" to offering you massive discounts to settle quickly, and this is the point to start taking notice.

The discounts will start to be offered, anywhere between 25% and 75% off dependant on various factors, pay them off as and when you can, according to the offers, if a creditor gets legal, then deal with it as necessary, most won`t do that.

This way you are never stuck for money, but you must save what you do not spend in order for it all to happen.

I have to be honest, it sounds like a good plan but I know I'd mess it up and would just spend the money. I am currently struggling with discipline in most senses

stu12345_2

credit karma is free credit check, you see your report and what has defaulted or not. i look at mines often on it.

do you have any addictions like gambling where you would blow your savings in this plan 

RAS

s12c said:

RAS said:

Hi, priorities are rent, CT, utilities, travel to work, food, clothing. You should make a monthly allowance for all the things like Christmas and presents, insurance, clothing, medical and dental and an emergency fund.

How much you pay towards your consumer debts depends what you have left. Have all your debts defaulted, or are you getting AP markers? Who is managing your DMP?
 

I think all of my debts are defaulted and some have transferred to debt management companies.

Stepchange are managing this for me. I don't know what an AP marker is.

The debt breakdown is as follows: 



I don't have any non-consumer debt included in my DMP

I take home around £2300 per month. My fixed expenses total £1300 (rent, bills, insurance) and then the DMP is £350 per month and I have £650 for variable costs (food, transport, presents, fees etc)

Looking at this, Cap 1, HSBC and Monzo are still in house, all the others are debt collectors. You can check all three credit agencies for free, but those are the one's you need to check.

s12c

stu12345_2 said:

do you have any addictions like gambling where you would blow your savings in this plan 

Nope, I am not addicted to gambling, alcohol or drugs.

s12c

RAS said:

s12c said:

RAS said:

Hi, priorities are rent, CT, utilities, travel to work, food, clothing. You should make a monthly allowance for all the things like Christmas and presents, insurance, clothing, medical and dental and an emergency fund.

How much you pay towards your consumer debts depends what you have left. Have all your debts defaulted, or are you getting AP markers? Who is managing your DMP?
 

I think all of my debts are defaulted and some have transferred to debt management companies.

Stepchange are managing this for me. I don't know what an AP marker is.

The debt breakdown is as follows: 



I don't have any non-consumer debt included in my DMP

I take home around £2300 per month. My fixed expenses total £1300 (rent, bills, insurance) and then the DMP is £350 per month and I have £650 for variable costs (food, transport, presents, fees etc)

Looking at this, Cap 1, HSBC and Monzo are still in house, all the others are debt collectors. You can check all three credit agencies for free, but those are the one's you need to check.

I just did it, this is the current status: 





I also want to be clear the DMP is progressing according to the plan and the debt is falling: 

DisabledDan

s12c said:

DisabledDan said:

s12c said:

I think all of my debts are defaulted and some have transferred to debt management companies.

Stepchange are managing this for me. I don't know what an AP marker is.

The debt breakdown is as follows: 



I don't have any non-consumer debt included in my DMP

I take home around £2300 per month. My fixed expenses total £1300 (rent, bills, insurance) and then the DMP is £350 per month and I have £650 for variable costs (food, transport, presents, fees etc)

What a lovely bunch of scum you have there on the lower half particularly.

The way I see it is you are 29 and single so unencumbered, therefore the question is do you value credit, do you want to save for a property so in 30 years when you have paid it off the Council can take it to pay off your social care?

Or would you prefer to form a company and buy to let up north for the cost of your wedding as and when that happens?

These may seem like facile questions but if you determine that you don't really care and you don't mind having a bad credit record for 6 years, oh wait you already have that, so question is do you want to go nuclear on 90% of the debt?

Regarding AP markers, I am no expert, just been there, done that, got the T-Shirt, was an extra in the movie and the remake, as I understand it if you stop paying but a debt does not default then it does not fall off your credit record for 6 years from when the debt is paid.  While if all your debt defaulted and was sold it falls off the credit record 6 years from the default.

From the list above it looks as if you had a bit of a problem you funded with credit cards, none of our business why, just whether the debt is consumer debt because the ability to enforce is limited.

The idea of defaulting is to get a substantial discount on the debt after it is sold, but some of your debt looks like it is just being managed by the likes of Moorcroft and still owned by the original lender.  So maybe now is the time for Tactical Nuke in the form of a self managed DMP where you shock them all by stopping paying the lot, meanwhile you pay what you would have paid to a new bank unrelated to any of your creditors.

You then wait until all the debt is sold off, you make no payments and enter into no agreement until all are at the same place.  Then the debt will be passed to the same or similar scum who will send an automated series of letters until they are fired and the debt is given to a new debt collector to chase.  What you are waiting for is for a specific discount; initial letters don't give a percentage, later they offer 20% (not worth it), then more scare tactics and finally an offer for 60% off.  With a DMP that is self managed you make the offer when you are ready but keeping that many debts in sync will be tricky.  Still your credit record will be updated with what you pay so some will do the same offer while others will think you have more disposable income.  

I serviced my debt for years after the 0% percent would no longer be offered, then I was fool enough to pay £50 per debt, then £15 , then £5 and even £1 per debt all the time resetting the 6 year countdown.  Finally,  I just wrote them all a letter saying I would not be making any more payments and I could not envisage a time when I would be able to make any payments.  They then defaulted pretty quickly, I think all within 3 months except one.  My route was not DMP but rather a Full Nuke, waiting 6 years from default and never making a payment or acknowledging the debt.  I was able to take this Full Nuke route because I had nothing to lose and felt I had paid enough interest for debt that was created on their computers and never existed not was earned by work or sale of assets.

They can pretend the money exists and I can pretend it does not, in the end it does not matter.  Sure the likes of Lowell can but debt that is unenforceable but still write letters trying to fool me but they get nothing.  Nobody is coming here and if they do they have no rights nor would I engage with them, I enjoy wasting their time and seeing the expressions on their faces on the video doorbell. I am not suggesting you do what I did,  but you need to get to the bottom of what happened to your debt. Did it all get sold off except HSBC, Monzo, Paypal Santander ?

Once you know what is what you can use the support on this forum to do a better DMP that is self managed, The link below is a good starting point.

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6496941/in-debt-and-wannabe-debt-free-first-steps/p1

Thanks for this! 

I hear what you're saying and I agree with some of the points you've made.

I'm trying to work out what has defaulted and what didn't default 

s12c said:

I have to be honest, it sounds like a good plan but I know I'd mess it up and would just spend the money. I am currently struggling with discipline in most senses

It's entirely up to you as you are the one who will live with the outcome, but one thing I know is that they need to be made to fear as much as you do.

If the debt is sold for between 5p and 12p in the pound then your whole debt cost them perhaps £800, but they will squeeze you for the whole £9k.

I am as much of a mug as everyone else, I never missed a payment, transferred from card to card, paid off all my debt numerous times only for them to increase my credit limit in the hope that I would hit a bump in the road and they could hit me for 39.9%.  

What made me realise that it was all futile and grossly unfair was when I found out about the Fractional Reserve Banking System, that they can invent £10,000 money for £300 and then charge 39.9% interest on the cards.  In real money with a 4% or £150 minimum payment that would take more than 14 years to pay off and cost around £38,300 in interest.

Now I am sure every user on this forum would invest £300 to get £38,300 back, but we are not allowed to do it and when we lend money we have to work for it and pay tax on it before we have money to lend.

The final nail in the coffin is that they sell that debt for a maximum of £1200 but more likely £500 and the company they sell it to can come after the debtor for the whole debt.  So even if they give the 60% discount they are getting £4000 back on the £500. I have been offered as much as 90% off because they knew it was off statute and the company was about to be sold.

Nobody is born with self discipline, it is something we master over time with motivation and self respect.  Really the main thing is to not show any signs of spending, no mobile phone contracts, no energy bills in your name (just tell your energy company you are moving, give them a read and they will send letters to "the occupier" you then pay that bill in cash using those payment services at corner shops.  What I have learnt about data protection is the best way to really protect your data is never to give it, I was not on the voters roll for years because they sell that data.  I do not engage and I have even had High Court Enforcement on non consumer debt, they looked just as dumbfounded as any other unwanted caller, but for consumer debt we just have people pretending to be HCEO's in the hope to scare someone.  They dress in black and yet they are the ones who should be scared, demanding money from complete stranagers.

The best approach for your debt is to have a plan, know your rights, know they have no powers, then lean on the shoulders of the experts here like Sourcrates and Fatbelly among others.

If these leeches think you have fallen of really hard times and are about to get a DRO they will make all kinds of offers, you can always call them in response to their 60% offer and say your brother offered to help you out for 90% off but it is a full and final settlement with a one time offer as you have just been told about DRO and are meeting with a debt counsellor next week.  All of this has to be done after the debt has been sold and it is them making the 60% offer after all other comms have been ignored.

BTW if someone threatens legal action then a legitimate response if you have no assets is to say "you are making me desperate, I am going to get a debt relief order, so go ahead".  If they feel you have nothing to lose and they will lose their debt they will be open to cutting their losses.

Part of reducing the stress is to change your phone number and email before you pull the pin on the grenade.  I moved mine to PAYG and just another online email, I then block all their numbers on my usual phone and do not take calls that I do not know the sender or if no caller ID.  If it is important they will leave a message but if it is a debt collector I never return their calls.  Once I was sure the new number and new email were in their system I did a GDPR request to have them only contact me by Royal Mail.

Part of your plan is a good filing system, pick up some lever arch folders from freecycle and store each debt in a section but move the whole section to a new folder when it has defaulted.  This is because once defaulted your debt will be given to every lowlife firm to have a go for 3 to six months. They are just more leeches and I see from your list you already have some of them allocated.

I did not get a DMP, probably because I am a stubborn as a mule, once I knew they could not really hurt me I just let the debt go off statute or for a CCJ to expire.  It is all a game and because they invent micro payments and lie about CCJ's I just let them continue to waste money sending letters.  I may do a DRO at some point even though all my debt is probably statute barred or expired CCJ this would just be a way to leave things tidy.  It used to be a max of £20k and cost £90 but now it is free and the limit is £50k, that would not cover all my debt but enough for the consumer debt, the rest have all accepted they are getting nothing.

DisabledDan

JadedAngel88 said:

Can't help on the dmp/debt but regarding your bed. I recently purchased a mattress and bed frame from eBay for £120, (frame was £40, mattress was £80) not expensive and more comfortable than the bed I had previously. 

Just an idea that these things don't have to cost hundreds and once things are better on the financial front you could buy a better bed.

Edited to add: it was new not used btw. The frame was seconds but was perfect.

I got a King Size metal bed frame in brand new condition, but instead of eBay I got it from Freecycle.  Neighbours set it up for me and I freecycled my old divan which was in good nick, I just wanted to use the space under the bed.  I gave them the mattress that I was gifted. 

I am registered with 4 towns close enough for me, I rarely need much now as I have had most things replaced numerous times, sofas changed 3 times, huge wardrobe from Heals that cost the person go gifted it £2k   I think almost all I own came from there, the only new thing I bought in last 3 years was an air fryer.  

RAS

s12c said:

I just did it, this is the current status: 



I also want to be clear the DMP is progressing according to the plan and the debt is falling: 

Thanks fine in one way but.....

All the debts that are marked as default will drop off you credit record 6 years after the date they were defaulted.

Those that have an Arrangement  to Pay (AP) marker will damage your credit record for 6 years after you pay them off. 

Others with more experience may have different views but I'd be inclined to suspend your relationship with Stepchange,  pay the existing debts already defaulted a reduced sum, stop paying those with APs apart from HSBC Bank and try to clear the HSBC Visa and Monzo.  Prioritises either of those if they are still adding interest or fees.

Alternatively, stop paying everything that is nor defaulted or OK.

s12c

RAS said:

s12c said:

I just did it, this is the current status: 



I also want to be clear the DMP is progressing according to the plan and the debt is falling: 

Thanks fine in one way but.....

All the debts that are marked as default will drop off you credit record 6 years after the date they were defaulted.

Those that have an Arrangement  to Pay (AP) marker will damage your credit record for 6 years after you pay them off. 

Others with more experience may have different views but I'd be inclined to suspend your relationship with Stepchange,  pay the existing debts already defaulted a reduced sum, stop paying those with APs apart from HSBC Bank and try to clear the HSBC Visa and Monzo.  Prioritises either of those if they are still adding interest or fees.

Alternatively, stop paying everything that is nor defaulted or OK.

Thanks, I get the value of doing it yourself and I would usually agree. 

I just worry about the impact on my longer term career of these actions - I don't want to be refused jobs because I have credit that appears to be out of control.