Help/Advice needed about existing DMP - any experts?

melt71

Hi everyone,

I've posted on here before a few times and always found you very helpful. But I'm back with some questions that I think only the DMP experts (or people who work for CCCS) may be able to help with.

The background;

My partner has approx £10k in credit card debt. Amazon, Halifax One and American Express.

When we decided to move in together/start a family etc I convinced him to deal with his debts rather than continuing to load stuff on his CC's and burying his head in the sand. He took the plunge and started the process of the DMP in Aug 2006. The first payment came out in Oct 2006 and although the time in between Aug-Oct was horrific, once it started everything was calm and things seemed to be under control.

He has never missed a payment and he now works full time (was previously studying p/t so only worked p/t). He's always paid a huge chunk of his earnings on his debt because we both want to get it cleared as soon as possible.

I am due to maternity leave in March and I am the main wage earner. We worked out a budget taking into account our joint income and all of the bills/mortgage etc and he agreed to pay £250 per month to his 3 creditors. This is going to be really tough on us but we really need to get them paid off as soon as possible.

I've filed all of the information from CCCS and also his credit card statements from Amazon & Halifax One but even though CCCS calculate that his debt is decreasing by the amount he is paying each month - this is NOT the case. Both Amazon & Halifax One are piling on interest again AND late payment charges. Even though they originally agreed to the DMP they are not playing ball. American Express haven't even sent any statements since the DMP began so we have no real idea of what is happening.

The interest & late payment charges are more than he is paying each month so his debt is still going up!!!

We really don't know what to do next, should we just come out of the DMP and let them take him to court (a court wouldn't expect him to pay any more than he is on the DMP as this leaves us no extras each month!). Or should we write to them and demand that they play ball and stop charging (& refund the charges made) or he'll pull out of the DMP?

We thought that we'd got this under control but it appears not

immoral_angeluk

Have you spoken to the CCCS about it? Maybe they can try again to negotiate with them to freeze the interest.

melt71

He's mentioned it to them unofficially but never put anything in writing or gone through any figures with them - I don't think they realise just how much these charges are mounting up each month and also, we're very concerned about the AMex one because they could have been adding charges for the whole 18 months! I'll get all the information together tonight and get him to call them with the figures tomorrow.

Hopefully that will spur CCCS into action, but what if it doesn't? We feel like there's no point in killing ourselves to pay £250 a month if he debt is increasing every month.

mrsclecoco_2

Hi i've just had a similar think with halifax, they stopped interset when we started with cccs in Jan 07. I had on saturday saying my year with interest frozen is up and they are going to start adding interest and charges back on from march. In 7 months the account will then be in enough arrears to pass to a DCA, even though i've asked them to do it now they wont.
Ive worked out in Jul 09 I will owe approx £1000 more than in jan 07 and I pay quiet a lot each month.

I'm no expert but i had a long chat with a guy from cccs and he said all they can do is send a letter asking that they freeze interest again. I'm not hilding my breath so will have to wait till it gets passes on.

Not a great solution but I'm not in a position to pay it off so don't really have much choice. It's just a big kick in the teeth when your trying really hard lik you obviously are xx

melt71

mrsclecoco wrote: »

Hi i've just had a similar think with halifax, they stopped interset when we started with cccs in Jan 07. I had on saturday saying my year with interest frozen is up and they are going to start adding interest and charges back on from march. In 7 months the account will then be in enough arrears to pass to a DCA, even though i've asked them to do it now they wont.
Ive worked out in Jul 09 I will owe approx £1000 more than in jan 07 and I pay quiet a lot each month.

I'm no expert but i had a long chat with a guy from cccs and he said all they can do is send a letter asking that they freeze interest again. I'm not hilding my breath so will have to wait till it gets passes on.

Not a great solution but I'm not in a position to pay it off so don't really have much choice. It's just a big kick in the teeth when your trying really hard lik you obviously are xx

Thanks for your reply.
So this is normal then? :eek: What the hell is the point of the halifax agreeing to a DMP as most people won't have it paid off within a year will they? I feel like telling them to stuff it and let them take us to court. There just seems no point in this if the debt isn't actually going to get paid off! It's really getting to me, this should be a happy time for us but because of money it's so stressful

Excuse my ignorance but what is a DCA?

CCCS_Sarah

Hi Melt,

Sorry for the delay only just noticed your message.

First of all, I know it’s hard but try not to let it bring you down. What I would say here is give client support a call with the balances of the debts and we will get that updated on our systems for you. If the debt has been increasing this may mean that other options are also available to you. When you call we will also go through all your income and expenditure again and see what option is ‘Best Advice’. If a DMP is still the option you choose to pursue then we can post a letter out to your creditors requesting they consider stopping the interest and charges again, and then we can take it from there.

Hope this helps info helps, speak to client support and let me know how you get on and if there is anything else I can help with

Good Luck
Sarah

mrsclecoco_2

melt71 wrote: »

Thanks for your reply.
So this is normal then? :eek: What the hell is the point of the halifax agreeing to a DMP as most people won't have it paid off within a year will they? I feel like telling them to stuff it and let them take us to court. There just seems no point in this if the debt isn't actually going to get paid off! It's really getting to me, this should be a happy time for us but because of money it's so stressful

Excuse my ignorance but what is a DCA?

DCA debt collection agency. I was going to stop paying, whats the point?? but the lovely lady at halifax (and she genuinly was nice!!) advised that if they passed it on and we had been showing willing ie paying something each month it would get passed to blair, oliver who are morethan likely going to stop interest or offer a settlement figure. I had another halifax account that was passed to them and they offered me a settlement.
If you don't pay anything then it is possible it will go to another agency that wont stop interest and just go to court.
I don't know if this was all a load of rubbish she was saying, i'ts all pretty new to me too but i've just sent off my first letter to start reclaiming charges,i've got nothing to loose!!

I know it's hard but don't let this debt rule your life. I started to let it and it made me ill, I was missing out so much of my childrens life (we have triplets at 18 months and a boy at 4), at the end of the day family is the most important thing

melt71

CCCS_Sarah wrote: »

If a DMP is still the option you choose to pursue then we can post a letter out to your creditors requesting they consider stopping the interest and charges again, and then we can take it from there. Sarah

Hi, thanks for your reply Sarah.

I'll get all the info together tonight and get OH to speak to CCCS tomorrow. The only thing is, what if the creditors don't agree to stop the charges?

Also, what about the charges that have already gone onto the debt? Is there nothing that can be done about these - the one thing that really annoys me is the late payment charges! He's never missed a payment and it goes out of his bank to CCCS on the 1st of every month. CCCS pay the creditors on approx 20th I think, so how can we help it if that is deemed to be 'late'! It's ridiculous.

After thinking that we were finally getting somewhere, we now feel like we've actually been going backwards because even though he's paid quite a lot over the last 18 months or whatever it is, we now owe more than we did originally. It's very very depressing.

I feel awful because it was me that convinced him to contact CCCS after coming onto this board for advice, I thought it would help to control the debt, but actually it isn't!

Thanks again for your reply, I really appreciate it.

CCCS_Sarah

Hi Melt,

I really do understand your frustration! As other people have mentioned it is showing willing to pay. Sometimes when creditors add late payment charges it’s not that the payment is ‘late’, it’s that the creditor is not getting the full payment that they want. Generally when debts get passed to a DCA the interest and changes get stopped so even if they don’t at the moment, it might when the debt gets passed over.

When was the last time that you had a review on your account? have all your other creditors stopped the interest and charges for you? You could for example have a review and ask the creditor again to consider stopping the interest and charges, send a copy of your budget so they can see there have been no changes to your budget. If after this the creditor is still applying the changes you could maybe write a complaint letter to that particular creditor advising other creditors have accepted the payments and for you to be able to get out of difficulties then they need to stop the charges and why did they accept the payment then to decline it?

Don’t give up though stick with it, even though it may not seem it at the moment it will get better again.

melt71

Thanks Sarah,

He had his review in November/December - it should have been earlier but CCCS couldn't do it 'officially' until he received his first payslip from his new job on 28th Dec (which at the time was frustrating, but we can now see the sense in this as he's actually been on emergency tax since he started at the end of November and it's only just been sorted by the tax office and should be refunded at the end of this month! - another reason we are frustrated :rolleyes:).

We wrote to Halifax One and Amazon to explain that he was in the process of doing the review and that his payments would actually be increasing in line with his increased wages/budget etc.

However, in December CCCS assured him that they would increase his payment from January onwards, all he had to do was make sure he rang them back on 28th December when he received his payslip. He did this and the budget was all confirmed 'officially'. But they didn't increase the payment! When he rang back to query this he was told that he'd been given the wrong info and it would start from Feb 08! It all seems to be sorted now but he's still getting credit card statements with charges on.

He only has 3 creditors - 2 of them are now charging interest and late payment charges again (Halifax and Amazon) although they did stop for a while in the middle of this DMP (it took them a few months at the start to stop and they've been charging again since Oct last year I think) and AMex could be doing anything on his account! We don't know because they never send any statements to him (or to CCCS).

It may be a good idea to write to them and say that other creditors have accepted the DMP/held the charges though - it's worth a shot isn't it?

Thanks to those of you that have replied, I feel slightly better than I did when I first posted!

melt71

Just to update on this;

OH emailed CCCS with all the details of what has been happening (and gave full details of all charges made since DMP started etc) he also told them about the situation with Amex (not getting any statements since DMP started and not knowing if charges/interest was being added).

They wrote back to say that they although they understand his concerns, the creditors do not have to stop the interest. They are going to write to Halifax One and Amazon to pass on his comments and ask them to stop the interest/charges. They've said that Amex will not deal with any 3rd parties about these matters and OH will have to contact them himself to request the information - why on earth did they not mention this before!!! They've led OH to believe that all 3 creditors were aware of the DMP and happy to deal with CCCS.

Looks like this isn't something that will be sorted easily and quite frankly after he got their reply yesterday, his attitude was 'sod it! I'm not going to kill myself every month paying them a huge chunk of my income if it's not even going to cover their charges - what's the point'.

I've never been one to shy away from problems like this, I don't agree with taking out a credit card and then not repay it, but now I'm starting to agree with him. He wants to pay it off, and wants to do it as quickly as possible, but if they won't play ball......