Almost £14,000 in debt and unsure what to do

Nalf03

Thank you. Another big concern is that my sister has had debts in the past and had people come to our parents house and her place of work to get hold of her. Which would be a bit embarrassing with neighbours and colleagues.

sourcrates

All of which is now unacceptable, and goes against FCA guidance on fair debt collection policy.

I`m guessing this is quite some years ago now, companies that allowed such practices now no longer exist, at least two major players were hauled over the coals by the FCA for such breaches of conduct, they were heavily fined, had restrictions placed on their consumer credit licences, management fired, staff were re-trained, and the companies had to adopt root and branch changes which included new names, and customer charters in order to carry on trading.

So that kind of thing tends not to happen any more.

There are tracing companies that are occasionally engaged, but they only call at your home address and likely all you see of them is a calling card, they are not debt collectors as such, they are sent to get you to re-engage with your creditor, and are mostly used much later on in the process, after a debt is sold and your still not answering communications, so you`re unlikely to come into contact with them.

Nalf03

Thank you all again. I have another quick question. I have no debts with my current account company, and the overdraft on my account is £2000 so I can't move my bills to a different account and let the direct debits for my unsecured debts be declined, it will go into my overdraft first.

So, if I cancel my direct debits through my bank, without contacting the companies in charge of my unsecured debt as advised earlier, they might try to set the payment back up?

In that case, if I had to do it this way, will they notice if i cancel them now, or would it be better to monitor the payment dates, and cancel just before so they dont get a chance to set it back up before it's missed?

Once they have been missed will I need to monitor to make sure they don't set them back up again?

Thank you again

SpireCaptain

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82167718#Comment_82167718

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82167965#Comment_82167965

I'm 2 months into missing payments and I've had no DDs try and be reinstated yet. I cancelled in the 7 credit card issuers app and also in my 2 banking apps.

Had lovely supportive letters from Barclaycard, nothing from Tesco. Helpful from MBNA also

BUT from Newday/Pulse well it's an intimidating change of font, big black banner in the app. Account suspended in capital letters, twice as many letters in a month from them and a missed payment marker on the credit file from them within a week of the 1st missed payment. The 6 others haven't done that yet and still saying if I pay what I owe these 2 months they won't recorded negative marks.

Nalf03

My credit card issuers don't seem to have the option to cancel a direct debit in the app without calling them, So im concerned that the only way to cancel it is through my banking app only and that they isn't still attempt them.

Nalf03

Can I just move my DDs over to a different account without an overdraft where the payment will fail? Or will they then just automatically move them back?

sammyjammy

Cancel the DDs in your banking app, do it now. They are not allowed to reinstate the DD, you've withdrawn your permission. I have NEVER heard of this happening. Cancel the DDs, take a breath, give yourself a few weeks breathing space and stop thinking about it if you can. Letters will arrive, just put them aside, there will also be phone calls, you can block them, ignore them or write to your creditors asking them not to contact you by telephone (its a bit hit and miss but will definitely reduce the traffic.

When you are ready revisit your DMP plan and take it forward.

Rob5342

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82168079#Comment_82168079

You are worrying about this too much, simply cancel them in your banking app and that's it. The only problem I've ever seen mentioned is when people switch bank accounts with the switching service and the direct debts all get carried over to the new account, so the advice is to manually move over the direct debits you want and cancel those you don't.

ManyWays

I have seen DDs reappear when they were cancelled at about the same time a bank switch was going on. This is a reason to avoid using the formal bank switch process, not to worry about reappearing DDs.

Cancel the DDs from the old account and then manually set up the DDs for bills you will still be paying in the new account.

Nalf03

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82168398#Comment_82168398

I'm not creating a new account. It seems pointless if my debt isn't with my bank.