DMP Mutual Support Thread (Part Three)

WhoopieDoodle

Good evening folks.

I was reading the thread from Loopylu (hello) regarding Alliance and Leicester and MBNA.

Payplan recommended we opened an A&L account as they were not linked to MBNA.

MBNA purchased A&L credit card business and if you have an A&L credit card, this is actually provided by MBNA.

This is the only way (I think) MBNA can offset your current account with A&L.

Anyway, as we are a tad worried ourselves now, we are going to ring Payplan first thing in the morning to double check.

tinkerbell12

Hi all,

We have just made our first payment to CCCS and not spent on credit for the first month in years and it feels good!! Thanks so much to everyone for their support so far.

Quick question - our creditors have on the whole being very helpful and MBNA sent a letter acknowledging our DMP. We then got our statement through with a late payment fee and full interest even though we are now paying more than the min payment each month.

We have spoken to Virgin and they have refunded the late payment fee and changed the date so it doesn't happen again but do not seem so helpful with the interest. They said they would only offer 0% if we had a financial review with them- is it me or does that sound dodgy!!!

So it's £85 a month interest for time being - has anyone else dealt with this company? Are they likely to refer us to a DCA?

fedupandworried

Thank you sunshine!

I'm also with A&L and payplan explained to me that my account will be ok with them even though i have MBNA creditors because i do not have an MBNA card with A&L! I did open another account anyway just in case, but still use the A&L account. So far its ok, but ive only been on the DMP 3 months. I would like to say that i have had alot of scare tactics from MBNA which hasnt been pleasant so far to the point of making me ill.

loopylu36

fedupandworried wrote: »

Thank you sunshine!

I'm also with A&L and payplan explained to me that my account will be ok with them even though i have MBNA creditors because i do not have an MBNA card with A&L! I did open another account anyway just in case, but still use the A&L account. So far its ok, but ive only been on the DMP 3 months. I would like to say that i have had alot of scare tactics from MBNA which hasnt been pleasant so far to the point of making me ill.

Hello and welcome fedup

From what you say I should imagine that if MBNA COULD take money from your account they would have done it by now.

There seems to be a lot of "newbies" on here lately - myself included. As Rayday said, it's quite comforting but also a bit worrying as so many people are in trouble. But i think we all help each other along and we are all being responsible and paying the money back, so hopefully we wont be single handedly responsible for the "bringing down" of any of the major high street lenders!! Although would that be such a bad thing?:D

Marru

Hi

About changing the bank account what I did was to get my bank (old one) to send me a list of all the direct debits and standing orders and then I cancelled all loan related ones with my old bank before I sent out my first letters. Then when I had a new account instead of letting the bank to change them over I opted to do it myself and that gave me more control of who had a dd/so to my new account and I didn't have any problems of anyone trying to take money out after that.

Teecee and smilealot. Could you please let me have a link to your challenge (if it is public that is) so that I can add it to the list of challenges: http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=767513

Thanks!!

Marru

sunshine38_2

Evening All

I've been wondering whether to actually do a DMP through CCCS. When you get to fill out the budget sheet there are obviously things on there that, when you are trying to do your own budget sheet, you just "cut out" in order to try and meet debt payments, for instance, hairdresser (cant remember the last time I went to one !) "Luxuries" such as hair appointments have always been one of the first things that dropped off my list whilst trying to repay debt.

I regularly wander in and out of the DFW threads and am wondering why some people take the route of cutting absolutely everything (or seems like everything) off the budget to meet debt repayments and then on the other hand there are DMPs with these charities that seem to "allow" certain "luxuries" and then use what's left for debt repayments - what's the real catch? On the surface it seems more sensible to allow certain items to remain in your budget so that you just dont give up the will to live, so to speak, while trying to repay your debt.

Is it that these "luxuries" are only allowed if you are on a DMP with a charity (or heaven forbid, one of those ones you pay for)?

Sorry, I'm just wondering which way to handle things and would appreciate your advice/thoughts.

Thanks

Sunshine x

fedupandworried

Hi Sunshine
Mt DMP at payplan allows things like that and advise you what you should and shouldn't have on your budget plan

sunshine38_2

Thank you fedupandworried

How are you finding things now that you are 3 months into it - do you find you sleep at night?!

Sx

fedupandworried

Not at all sunshine. I'm still dead worried especially with one of the creditors using the scare tactics on me. I know i can't do anything more and i have made the biggest step to get help, but i am still very worried about things. I think the easier bit is the DMP now speak to the creditors and not me, so that does help reduce the stress.

smilealot

Well done Tinkerbell!!

Sunshine - Payplan build in essentials such as clothes, hairdressers, car maintenence, dentist, chemist etc. I had never budgeted for such items in the past, so strictly speaking I'm better off now, especially since I was paying £650pm before the DMP and now £230. My DMP payment is manageable without having to rob Peter to pay Paul like I used to have to do. Of course, £20pm for clothes doesn't really go far if you shop as a hobby (which I used to) and there are no allowances for socialising, so I scrimp on certain items to pay for this. The trick is to build in a margin on your expenses, e.g. I gave a figure for food that was £20pm higher than I need it to be, same with petrol, so there is £40pm I have to put aside or spend on a treat. Does that make sense?

Marru - what do you mean by a link? I don't think we've set it up as an official challenge (sorry I'm new to this!), just as a fun motivational thing between the two of us. Others are welcome to join though! It's to save any spare cash we have towards a F&F offer instead of squandering it on silly non-essentials.

smilealot :rolleyes2