What to tell StepChange

Scarlet_to_Black

I suspect the answer may be “the truth”, but I’m putting off trying to get through by phone to SC as I think I might be dissuaded from my plan! 

DMP first payment was April and I paused it in May.  Affordability complaint with Financial Ombudsman for 4 NatWest accounts, all passed to Moorcroft and I don’t want to pay anything until I have a reply re the complaint and SC happy for this. The others are with Lloyds, PayPal and Sainsburys, oh and a very small amount with Next. None have defaulted yet.  I did rush into the DMP before I’d digested all the advice here and now know this isn’t the best plan. I have £600 saved but want to add to this emergency buffer. 

So, my plan is to write an SOA and get advice from the experts here and in the meanwhile stop paying everything and await the defaults to hit my credit file. I have had arrears notices but nothing on file yet.  

I don’t think SC would approve of my plan and also I may want to resurrect the SC plan down the line, depending on how I get on self-managing. 

So, looking for advice on how I deal with SC please 🙏?

sourcrates

Quite simple, you tell them you wish to pause your plan for the time being due to unforeseen circumstances.

You can do this by email.

They will keep you on file for a period of time, after which, if you don`t re-connect, they will likely remove you from their system, stepchange is not a cult you need to escape from, just a charity to help you repay your debts, nothing more than that.

All very easy and a 2 min job.

Scarlet_to_Black

Thanks, again 😅🙏

Rob5342

When I started managing my dmp i just spent 30 seconds writing an email telling them so and that was that. Stepchange were useful when I first started, but having become familiar with the process I found they just made things more difficult. 

Scarlet_to_Black

Thanks @Rob5342. Your historical posts really helped me when I was looking at doing affordability complaints and considering my own DMP.  🙂. I’ll email them now and stop procrastinating!