Any HSBC/token payment advice & update

IgglePiggle03

Hi

Was wondering if anyone had any words of advice.

After contacting the CCCS in december & discovering our income only just matched our expenditure we were advised to ofer token payments for the minute and duly sent off letters/i&e & £1 cheques. From the start HSBC have wanted to do battle! They point blank refused to cancel so for their loan so it took Jan payment, bringin us over our agreed od (more charges) then took the feb payment which was reversed the same day & had a £25 charge put on immediately! Since then they have been ringing my dh daily, who has patiently explained the situation & that we are doing the best we can & they have actually cashed the cheques we sent them so they can see we're not ignoring the problem. They rang again this evening about 8.45 (when I had already asked nicely if they could ring before 8 as we have youing children) & he had a woman on the phone who didn't seem to be listening to word he said, told him to get another job to pay his bills & implied that the CCCS don't know what they're talking about! And breathe ............... That made me so cross when I heard that as if it wasn't for the CCCS I would be in even more debt than I already have.

Anyway I think its a loss cause with them at the moment but thankfully other creditors have been more sympathetic. We have had interest & charges frozen on several of the other cc's and have around 4/5 months to raise some more regular income to enable us to pay more a month as we are just on the token payments at the moment. In particular I have to say how gobsmacked I was when Northern Rock immediately agreed to our proposal for 6 months!

MBNA have hassled a bit with phone calls, although its the external collection agencies they use who I'm having the problems with. I actually spoke to MBNA yesterday morning and had confirmation all was in order for the time being & I should now only hear from them about once a month to see if circumstances have changed. In the afternoon I had a call from this bloke who p**d me off that much I had to put the phone down. I was shaking (not with terror mind, just frustrated crossness!!)

MINT have issued me with a default notice & termination of the account letter. It says I need to pay off the card in 14 days but then it acknowledges that I've offered an unreasonable payment plan so i'm no further forth really. Anyone know where it goes from here.

On the whole its not been too bad so far, the fact that we can pay our mortgage & priority bills, do the food shop & fill the cars with diesel when needed & all from the bank account, despite it being a bad couple of months, is something of a revelation to me. I have a job application sitting waiting to be filled in & the knowledge that my parents will be able to help me out with childcare certainly helps. That and the big bar of Dairy milk sitting beside it! lol

Ok i've rambled enough, any thoughts or experiences would be more than welcome

Thanks

IP

itsnowtime

Welcome and I have to say the 'breathe....' made me chuckle.

I too have had to breathe many times with HSBC, they will continue to call you until they default the account to a DCA which does seem to take ages. They may also suggest you take out a Managed Loan but please take a look at the several threads on here....

The phone calls do get quite erratic and on more than one occassion I have told the person on the other end of the phone that I have felt patronised, that their tone of voice was bordering on aggressive (not assertive!) and one person in particular I told them that they wasn't accurately summarising my conversation and was being slanderous - how dare they!!!

However.... I've learnt to remain calm, repeat myself every week, and continue to advise that my circumstances haven't changed. It's not all bad I've had some really polite people on the phone and as I say to them I understand they are doing their job - some better than others (but that's life)

Sorry that that little picture I painted isn't that rosey but you may find that they send you to a DCA fairly quickly it depends on the amount you're offering v's what was agreed and how quick you fall into arrears.

On a lot more positive note well done and good luck!!

IgglePiggle03

Thank you for your reply. I was wondering whether its worth writing a letter asking them to correspond by post only now, the phone calls are getting a nuisance. Dh just seems to have to say the same thing over & over. Its not like we're ignoring the problem, we're doing as much as we can but I guess their commission is based on how much money they can get off you & our offer just ain't worth enough to them!

Heyho I'm not losing any sleep over it, as everyone so very rightly says its only money & can be sorted!:j

IP

IgglePiggle03

BTW yes have read about the managed loans & will def aoid like a bargepole. Have actually had a couple of creditors ask if i'd considered consolidating to sort it out, managed to calmly tell them that this contributed to the state of affairs we're in now so not on your life!! Not sure how they think i'd get any more credit now anyway but i never want to see another credit card as long as I live anyway!

hitback

Hi there
I've seen a template somewhere on this forum that you can send off to creditors asking them to contact you only in writing. Someone may be along shortly with a copy you could use. when we started our DMP with CCCS we were plagued with calls too! Most of the time they are by little people on big power trips, told a few this before i put the phone down! Our creditors have mostly been reasonable and i think it's like you say if you keep them informed they are generally ok....except NatWest but then that's another story!!!! We've also developed an allergy to credit cards/loans and overdrafts!!!
Good luck with everything!

IgglePiggle03

Just had a letter in the post from MINT saying my account has been passed over to different department and that although payment proposal is totally unrealistic they are prepared to accept it for 6 months with the interest freezing 28 days after the default letter was issued (need to check when that was). Sainsburys have sent a statement showing arrears due & interest applied but I think it was 2 months before they'd consider freezing it. God knows how much the debts gone up since december with interest & charges but at least some have stopped now.

ALso MBNA sent a statement showing no interest/charges but in the same post was a letter from them saying because we're refusing to pay blah blah blah?! Hmmmm

On a positive note, have filled in the job app so going to drop that in later.

IP

hitback

Yeh Sainsburys are a nightmare with interest! If we receive any letters from creditors threatening or accusing...We ring em and remind them we are with CCCS and if they refuse to accept payments does this mean they will be sending them back???
Good luck with the job !!!!