Advice needed

Rob5342

SPM87 said:

also, affordability complaints are just waste of your time in my view, your aim is to be worse case paying back a small% of this money you borrowed. You will already be serving your sentence of poor credit (the source of your pain to begin with) for 6 years.

They can be very worthwhile, I got back about £15,000 of interest from Nationwide after making an affordability complaint. That gave me £5000 and cleared a debt that might have taken 5 years for me to repay otherwise. 

My view is try every option open to you, in the very worst case youve wasted half an hour of your time, but the outcome could be hugely beneficial. Don't pin your hopes on anything, start off with a DMP that puts you in a sustainable position and will clear all your debts, then look at affordability complaints, CCA requests and settlement offers to speed it up at much as you can. 

SPM87

Rob5342 said:

SPM87 said:

also, affordability complaints are just waste of your time in my view, your aim is to be worse case paying back a small% of this money you borrowed. You will already be serving your sentence of poor credit (the source of your pain to begin with) for 6 years.

They can be very worthwhile, I got back about £15,000 of interest from Nationwide after making an affordability complaint. That gave me £5000 and cleared a debt that might have taken 5 years for me to repay otherwise. 

My view is try every option open to you, in the very worst case youve wasted half an hour of your time, but the outcome could be hugely beneficial. Don't pin your hopes on anything, start off with a DMP that puts you in a sustainable position and will clear all your debts, then look at affordability complaints, CCA requests and settlement offers to speed it up at much as you can. 

if you default the interest gets wiped off anyway, this has happened to more than one of mine now. also why are we trying to "clear" defaulted debt? I dont see it being beneficial tbh as if you are defaulted you should be looking to be paying anything from 0 - 20% of the value of the debt. Clearing defaulted debt is an absolute waste of your hard earned money unless it is cleared at a low % value. 

Clearing debt is for people who want to preserve credit files, if you are beyond this situation (anyone who cannot get out of debt within 2-3 years max imo) then the strategy should shift completely

sourcrates

SPM87 said:

"if you default the interest gets wiped off anyway"

"Clearing debt is for people who want to preserve credit files"

Well yes and no to both of those statements, advice on this board is mainly tailored at those who need or want to repay their outstanding debts, if your strategy is to wait it out until they become statute barred, then none of this really applies to you.

Where interest is concerned, it depends on the type of debt you have, a credit card debt for instance would continue to accrue interest until it defaulted, wear as the interest on a loan will always be due as per the original agreement once defaulted.

There remains the possibility of a cheap settlement deal at some point, thus saving any interest accrued at the beginning of the process, but that can`t always be relied upon.

Hoping to keep creditors at bay for 6 years can work as a strategy for some, and if you have no assets or a job that forbids CCJ`s on your credit file, all well and good, but many who choose debt management are also homeowners, or their work requires a credit check, they have to be very careful how they proceed if they want to avoid a CCJ and a charging order.

For those people, and anyone else who choose debt management, affordability complaints can and do reduce the amount of indebtedness they may have, and in many cases, it can be very beneficial to them.

Rob5342

If I had simply stopped paying my Nationwide credit card then the very best case would be that I paid no more towards it and it became statute barred after six years. Making the affordability complaint meant I got a cheque for £5000 that I wouldn't have done otherwise and I was guaranteed that there would be no further legal action. 

SPM87

sourcrates said:

SPM87 said:

"if you default the interest gets wiped off anyway"

"Clearing debt is for people who want to preserve credit files"

Well yes and no to both of those statements, advice on this board is mainly tailored at those who need or want to repay their outstanding debts, if your strategy is to wait it out until they become statute barred, then none of this really applies to you.

Where interest is concerned, it depends on the type of debt you have, a credit card debt for instance would continue to accrue interest until it defaulted, wear as the interest on a loan will always be due as per the original agreement once defaulted.

There remains the possibility of a cheap settlement deal at some point, thus saving any interest accrued at the beginning of the process, but that can`t always be relied upon.

Hoping to keep creditors at bay for 6 years can work as a strategy for some, and if you have no assets or a job that forbids CCJ`s on your credit file, all well and good, but many who choose debt management are also homeowners, or their work requires a credit check, they have to be very careful how they proceed if they want to avoid a CCJ and a charging order.

For those people, and anyone else who choose debt management, affordability complaints can and do reduce the amount of indebtedness they may have, and in many cases, it can be very beneficial to them.

you say this but actually this is not the case, even for front loaded interest rate... loans typically accrue daily and some ones front load them, in either case the full balance including all the interest is never applied to the final amount. 

I have had 10s of thousands of interest wiped out by defaulting. This is just the reality

SPM87

Rob5342 said:

If I had simply stopped paying my Nationwide credit card then the very best case would be that I paid no more towards it and it became statute barred after six years. Making the affordability complaint meant I got a cheque for £5000 that I wouldn't have done otherwise and I was guaranteed that there would be no further legal action. 

well if you got a 5k cheque (and they did not wipe it off the balance) then fair enough, but the last place I am putting that 5k to is yo pay down any defaulted debt and that should be the advice to any consumer

SPM87

Also I am not waiting for SB either.. there are not only 2 options, pay it all down or wait for SB. It is wait until not able to enforce or they cannot enforce and were never able to.. whatever comes first. 

this is why I say, pay as little as possible. Too many on here are promoting using SC and are doing budgets paying back mind blowing amounts of their income to defaulted debt. This is the scam of all scams and should not be advice

glasstable

Do I cancel all direct debts? Even the ones that are for credit cards with the same bank?  

I need too live off credit cards until next months payday - is this wrong of me? Money for debt is already earmarked or coming out for Januarys payments. I literally have £40 to last until then

Can I request that communication is via letter only with debt collector companies?  Or should I just change my tel number? 

Do I need to inform my creditors that I won’t be paying anything going forward?  Or do I just cancel payments without informing.

Has Anyone ever had debt written off by speaking to bank about circumstances? 

Do debt collectors turn up at your workplace? Sit and wait on you at home? 

Apologies for all the questions my brain is going 100 miles an hour with it all and the shame I am feeling is off the scale.

ManyWays

SPM87 said:

sourcrates said:

SPM87 said:

"if you default the interest gets wiped off anyway"

"Clearing debt is for people who want to preserve credit files"

Well yes and no to both of those statements, advice on this board is mainly tailored at those who need or want to repay their outstanding debts, if your strategy is to wait it out until they become statute barred, then none of this really applies to you.

Where interest is concerned, it depends on the type of debt you have, a credit card debt for instance would continue to accrue interest until it defaulted, wear as the interest on a loan will always be due as per the original agreement once defaulted.

There remains the possibility of a cheap settlement deal at some point, thus saving any interest accrued at the beginning of the process, but that can`t always be relied upon.

Hoping to keep creditors at bay for 6 years can work as a strategy for some, and if you have no assets or a job that forbids CCJ`s on your credit file, all well and good, but many who choose debt management are also homeowners, or their work requires a credit check, they have to be very careful how they proceed if they want to avoid a CCJ and a charging order.

For those people, and anyone else who choose debt management, affordability complaints can and do reduce the amount of indebtedness they may have, and in many cases, it can be very beneficial to them.

you say this but actually this is not the case, even for front loaded interest rate... loans typically accrue daily and some ones front load them, in either case the full balance including all the interest is never applied to the final amount. 

I have had 10s of thousands of interest wiped out by defaulting. This is just the reality

Lenders vary in how they treat loans, it sounds like you got very lucky if all yours stopped charging any more interest, this is not "typical" and with many, as @sourcrates says "the interest on a loan will always be due as per the original agreement once defaulted."

Also even if you do get lucky and have a loan lender who stops adding interest, winning an affordability complaint will reduce the balance as the previous interest charged is removed, which also happens with cards and overdrafts.

ManyWays

I need too live off credit cards until next months payday - is this wrong of me? Money for debt is already earmarked or coming out for Januarys payments. I literally have £40 to last until then
We are saying stop paying these now. When you have to default, the sooner the better.

Can I request that communication is via letter only with debt collector companies?  Or should I just change my tel number? 
You can request this but it may not happen, or may not happen quickly. 

Do I need to inform my creditors that I won’t be paying anything going forward?  Or do I just cancel payments without informing.
You dont have to tell them. But the sooner you do, the sooner they will realise you havent just missed a couple of payments by accident.

Has Anyone ever had debt written off by speaking to bank about circumstances? 
Yes. But write offs are uncommon unless you have already defaulted (another good reason to do this soon) AND unless you have a good reason to ask for one: poor mental or physical health which you are unlikely to recover from, near or past retirement age so your situation is unlikely to improve, financial abuse. Nothing you have said so far suggests any of these are likely, but why not post a statement of affairs?

Do debt collectors turn up at your workplace? Sit and wait on you at home? 
All your creditors look like standard consumer credit act lenders. Unless you have some business debts in there, no debt collector is going to turn up at your work. It is possible you may get a visit if you are blanking the lenders, but often the debt is just sold on. Visits are rare than you probably think . And they wont hang around long at home if no one opens the door, thye will just put a card through the door and then on to hope to find someone easier to deal with.