Questions about a DMP and £50k in debt

tigergambit

From memory Ikano defaulted me quite quickly and I then paid them around £2.50 for about 18 months until they accepted a F&F of around 23%.

My debt with them was my smallest debt and I assume yours are small amopunts (under £1k) too. Once they default you I don't think they can add charges for debt collection and a CCJ isn't practical for them given the small amount as long as you're paying something. The "Missing Payments" bit shouldn't be telling you anything you don't already know. 

They are a bit of a weird company in my experience. They kept my debt in house and don't communicate particularly well but were fine about a F&F settlement.

BasketballJumper90

@tigergambit my outstanding balances with them are £525 and £1631.25. It's useful to have some prior experiences there too, thank you.

BasketballJumper90

Hi everyone, another piece of advice if possible please. I've started getting calls from First Direct Financial Support now, shall I just ignore them or shall I answer them and tell them to correspond with me in writing? They are my current account with overdraft and credit card.

If there's a script anywhere to deal with these kind of calls that would be useful!

sourcrates

BasketballJumper90 said:

Hi everyone, another piece of advice if possible please. I've started getting calls from First Direct Financial Support now, shall I just ignore them or shall I answer them and tell them to correspond with me in writing? They are my current account with overdraft and credit card.

If there's a script anywhere to deal with these kind of calls that would be useful!

I presume you are waiting for defaults?

Any help they offer will lengthen the process, if you want a default, best to ignore all correspondence except a court claim.

BasketballJumper90

sourcrates said:

BasketballJumper90 said:

Hi everyone, another piece of advice if possible please. I've started getting calls from First Direct Financial Support now, shall I just ignore them or shall I answer them and tell them to correspond with me in writing? They are my current account with overdraft and credit card.

If there's a script anywhere to deal with these kind of calls that would be useful!

I presume you are waiting for defaults?

Any help they offer will lengthen the process, if you want a default, best to ignore all correspondence except a court claim.

Yes I am waiting for defaults, sorry I should have clarified. I've missed one payment on everything so far and starting to get the missed payment fees so still early days yet.

Thanks for confirming!

sourcrates

Oh yes, very early days, you see the bank won`t know why you are not paying, so the "help" wagon will be rolled out, as they attempt to keep you as a customer.

Once the accounts default, you are no longer a customer, you become a debtor, they will then lose interest in you, and your debts will likely be sold to a 3rd party.

BasketballJumper90

Hi everyone, an update: I've been ignoring calls from creditors since June (just blocking them in my phone tbh!) and I've received my first Default Notices from Ikano per the below, first letter received on 6th August. I've obviously removed personal details other than the balances, and I've got another letter for the other loan we have with them. 

Looking back through the previous posts in this thread, this one here says we have to "wait until until you get a request from them or their appointed administrators / DCA and check that it shows as defaulted on your credit record. Normally 6 weeks or so after default but may be longer if debt has been sold on."

Am I right in saying the below is that request, and the 6 weeks clock starts ticking now? So given I'm going to do a self managed DMP, now do I:

1. send them the letter now/before Sept 3rd to tell them what I can afford to pay them per month and negotiate
2. wait until the default shows first on my credit file then send the letter
3. something else?

Thanks in advance!

This is a Default Notice served under section 87(1) of the Consumer Credit Act 1974

In respect of the IKEA Interest Free Loan account (the ‘Agreement’) made between Ikano Bank AB (publ) (‘we’, ‘us’, ‘Ikano’) and x (‘you’ ‘your’ the ‘Customer’).

Provision of Agreement breached: Under clause 3 of the Agreement you agreed to pay each monthly payment due under the Agreement in full and on the repayment date.

Nature of Breach: You have failed to pay the monthly payments.

Action required: You must pay the full amount of arrears that you owe us of £225.00 by 03 September 2025 to remedy your breach of your agreement.

It can take 5 working days for payments to clear and be applied to your account, so please allow for this when you make a payment.

The arrears amount does not include any outstanding fees.

Account balance: £592.00

Arrears amount: £225.00

If the action required by this notice is taken before the date shown, the action below will not be taken in respect of the breach.

If you do not take the action required by this notice before the date shown, then the further action set out below may be taken against you.

Further Action:

• We will terminate your agreement and close your account and your balance will become due and payable

• We will notify the credit reference agencies that you have defaulted on your agreement; this may affect your ability to obtain credit from other lenders. The default will be registered with the credit reference agencies.

This information is held on your credit file and is shared with other lenders to show how you’ve managed your financial relationship with us. Lenders can see a record of your payment history and if you have a bad payment record or county court judgements, this information will show for up to six years.

• We work with specialist debt purchasers and we may choose to sell your account, they would take over the management of your account and any money that you owe will become payable to them. If this does happen the debt purchaser will be in contact with you directly to discuss the options available to repay your debt on this account.

• If you fail to make the full payment then you should consider this as notice of termination of your agreement that will come into effect on the date shown above and your full outstanding balance will be payable. The current balance is shown above.

It’s important that you act now. We have a team of experienced advisors who will be happy to talk through your account and any concerns you may have about keeping up with payments. Please call using the number at the bottom of this letter.

You can pay by: (Ikano bank details, MoneyHelper advice etc snipped)

Grumpelstiltskin

Wait until the default shows on your credit report and you may get a letter from a debt recovery company saying they are now collecting it.

You don't phone anyone and negotiate you work out what % of your total debt this is, then work out the total amount you can pay towards your debt and just start paying this % amount.

That is if a valid CCA has been provided.

sourcrates

Its not a six week clock at all, the lender has many options open to them, and there is no timeframe for any of this to happen.

They may or may not apply a default to your credit file, they do normally, but not always.

The lender can then choose to sell the debt to a 3rd party, or they can assign their own debt collector, they could do absolutely nothing with it, its not uncommon for some lenders to do nothing with a particular defaulted account, for months, years even, then all of a sudden they may choose to sell it, or they may never chase it at all, there are many ways this can go, and its impossible to predict how a lender will react before hand.

You just have to get on with your life and wait until someone writes to you asking for money, it could be soon, it could be next year, it could be never, that`s how the world of debt collection rolls unfortunately.

BasketballJumper90

So just confirming, the letter I pasted above isn't a "lender asking me for money"? I thought I should be looking out for the section 87(1) letter to start paying, is that not the case? I guess what I'm looking for is the specific trigger for me to start paying back, if possible please! Or is that the default appearing in my credit file?

Also when I said "negotiate" I meant "write them a letter and tell them what I can afford based on what I've worked out" 🙂