Unhappy with Debt Adviser - Should I make Offers myself?

Bartels

Hiya,

I owe 5 creditors somewhere in the region of £8,700 and have been paying them nominal amounts for 16 months or so under a repayment plan set up by a CAB Debt Adviser.

In about 4 weeks I'm going to receive about £4,000 as a result of injuries sustained by being knocked off of my push bike by an inattentive motorist.

I'm very unhappy with my Debt Adviser (see below) and have begun to wonder if I might be better off if I approach my creditors myself with a view to making full and final settlement offers.

Could someone offer any advice about this, please?

Background:

I'm a tenant of an Housing Association and live in a block of 6 flats. I began getting into debt as a result of doing psychotherapy while at the same time living with noisy/violent/etc. neighbours whose 'personality characteristics' and behaviour patterns were no different than that of my parents. The Housing Association wouldn't do anything - they appeared to view us all as 'mentally ill' and consequently not worth bothering with.

I became suicidal in July, 2006 and had a breakdown. This is when my debts came to light and I was advised to approach CAB. A repayment plan was set up where I make the following monthly payments:

Creditor A: £6.16 per month
B: £3.80
C: £1.00
£1.00
E: £1.00

After the repayment plan was set up I got lots of letters from the various creditors saying things like "We're taking you to court", "Your debt has been sold to..", etc. My Debt Adviser (who lives in the next town) got fed up with my questions of "What does this mean and what do I do about it?" and applied a policy of non-communication. Then he reset my payments to Creditors A and B to £1 in August of last year and ignored my letters and emails saying there was something wrong.

Anyway, perhaps giving too much background might not be relevant (except that it helps me feel better) but the final straw was when his first reaction to hearing of my injury compensation was to tell me to "Spend it". I'm desperate to get a settlement whereas he gives me the impression I ought to stay in debt forever.

So, if I haven't muddied the waters too much, I'm basically posting here to ask if it would be a good idea for me to 'go it alone' and for any advice (in general or from experience) about how to do so.

Thank you for your time

Bartels-the-Debtor

10past6

Hello Bartels

Welcome to the forums, others will be along soon to offer their advice, but for me, be very careful if you're offering higher payments to any of your creditors.

They will want to know where the money came from, also, if you pay off one creditor, and not the other, this will open a can of worms, as they will all want their take.

I'm surprised by the advice you've received from a "Debt Councilor" that being said, DO NOT ALLOW THIS TO CLOUD YOUR JUDGEMENT, not all debt councilors are the same, most are caring people.

Have a think about contacting some of the following, National Debt line, CCCS, Payplan, all have a proven track record when dealing with creditors.

Also, doing a DMP through one of the above organizations should relieve some of the stress for you, contact each of the organizations I've mentioned and take their advice, you have nothing to lose by seeking their advice.

The above organizations I’ve mentioned are very supportive, and respected on this board.

Continue to post any concerns you have

In the meantime, good luck

Bartels

Thank you for your reply and for the welcome, 10past6

The reason why I'm paying different amounts to Creditors A and B than to the others is because my repayments were worked out on a pro rata basis: I owe A about £4.7k, B about £2.7k, and the other three about £500-£600 each.

I'll look up National Debt line, CCCS (who are they?), and Payplan later in the day but I've already been in touch with the British Legion who are reluctant to get involved because I'm already represented, so to speak, and who have basically said to stick with the CAB Debt Adviser.

I'm going to have about £4k and just want to find the easiest way to go about making percentage offers on my debts that my creditors might accept - I just think that having someone represent me might carry more clout than going it alone but I'm unhappy with the CAB chappy.

I don't know what a DMP is but I am already making regular monthly payments. I have a lump sum coming and just want to use it to get out of debt.

Bartels

Oldernotwiser

As your lump sum is nearly 50% of your debt I'd think that you've a good chance of having full and final settlements accepted. There are specimen letters available on here and you could start by offering about 30% which would leave you room to manoevre. Don't send any money until you have it in writing from them that they accept your offer as Full and Final Settlement of your debts. You can do this quite well for yourself as your debt counsellor sounds useless.
Good luck.

Bartels

Oldernotwiser wrote: »

As your lump sum is nearly 50% of your debt I'd think that you've a good chance of having full and final settlements accepted. There are specimen letters available on here and you could start by offering about 30% which would leave you room to manoevre. Don't send any money until you have it in writing from them that they accept your offer as Full and Final Settlement of your debts. You can do this quite well for yourself as your debt counsellor sounds useless.
Good luck.

Thank you for the encouraging advice, Oldernotwiser

I've looked at one sample letter via the link given by Honeybee in the third post of this thread:

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=855613

I feel a lot better for having posted here (thank you!) and have several weeks to find things out before the money arrives so hopefully I'll know what I am about when it finally does.

The CAB Debt Adviser certainly does his job insofar as setting up the repayment plan but the trouble began when none of the creditors accepted it and he had closed my case.

I won't give chapter & verse but on one occasion a creditor asked for an increase in the payment allocated to them from £1 to £5. He sent them a letter saying he would ask me what I wanted to do and then proceeded to ignore my telephones calls/emails/letters asking what I should do.

I was quite happy to pay the increase, and with no advice forthcoming, I did so. Two months later, when he found out, the CAB Debt Adviser went ballistic. It was just after this that he reset all the repayments to £1-per-creditor and then left me trying to sort out the mess - which was quite difficult because I didn't know the repayments had ben changed. God knows where the surplus money went.

Anyway, for someone with my background, being deliberately ignored over something so important was very difficult to handle.

Still, there's light at the end of the tunnel. Thanks again for helping

Bartels

Bismarck

hi...well done for posting in the first place...you're sure to get plenty of views...some are unexpected...this is probably one.

Are you paying interest and charges on what you owe?
Bank the cheque in a new savings account...completely separate from anyone you owe money to....then play really hard with the creditors until they all come up with full and final for settlement.

If there are no charges etc being added to what you owe and you can trust yourself with the lump sum, you can keep on going with the money in the other hand until you really want to pay out if it's gaining interest at a higher rate than you're being charged.

If you do want to draw a line underneath all this then obviously feel free but don't rush into anything that separates you from your money as it is a fantastic bargaining tool.

I hope you feel better and are making good progress from touching bottom in 2006...you're worth more that that.

let us know how you get on!! good luck

Bartels

Thank you for replying, Bismarck (er, how do I 'thank' people in the forum sense?). I managed to open a new bank account after I defaulted on the overdraft of my 'old' one so I don't think I'll have any problems with paying the cheque into there ('fingers crossed'!).

None of my creditors are charging interest now though they did so initially. Also, one of the creditors began to add interest again after my payments to them began going adrift but they took the interest off again once I spoke to them directly. Part of the difficulty I've had is that the Debt Adviser controls my PayLink/PayPoint account, even when the case is closed.

To be honest, it seems like I've (so far) had better luck talking to my creditors direct than through my adviser. I think this is illusory, though, because I'm sure they've taken more notice of him than they would have of me.

I'll have no problem in not spending the money - I really do want to draw a line under what's happened. And things have improved a lot since 2006 (thanks!) but it does feel like I'm having to battle my way out - once the debts are sorted out then its back to Southern Housing Group to pick up on a complaint I've made about what they let happen (they once offered me £70 in compensation, I'm not after money but I certainly want to get to the bottom of things).

It'll be a real relief to (hopefully) come back to this thread one day and say the debts have been cleared.

Bartels

Bismarck

Hi again,

you can "thank" by clicking on the "thanks" button at the bottom right of the post you want to thank...

Regarding battling your way out, it's not easy and a lot of the folks on here are battle-hardened warriors in one way or another...the beauty of the forum is that word/information gets around so the wounds we suffer aren't as deep and we heal quicker!

I'm sure you're doing great sorting this out for yourself and look forward to your celebratory post when you've done it! Wishing you well...

Bartels

Ah yes, I've finally found it!

Although the button is pretty obvious, as a newbie I've been reading replies before logging in to answer them (Firefox has been ignoring my requests to stay logged in) so the buttons have been 'invisible' to me. Anyway, all sorted now

I've certainly found it helpful posting here and I agree, doing so does make the wounds more manageable. I've really found it very difficult dealing with the CAB Debt Adviser and found him to be something of a bully. During a meeting at the end of January, for example, I told him that there was a possibility I might be getting some compensation and of my hope that it would be sufficient to help with my debts.

It seems to be a characteristic of the man to automatically crush hopes in people (or more likely, just his clients - it's a sort of master/slave relationship). First, he was dismissive of the possibility that any money might be forthcoming and then almost contemptuous of the amount I might receive. I just felt flattened, and as I said in an earlier post, his knee-jerk reaction when I told him that compensation had become a reality was another, vaguely sneering retort of "Spend it!".

As I also said in an earlier post, the British Legion have advised me to stick with the CAB Adviser saying, amongst other things, "We wouldn't be doing anything different from what he will do". Well, posting here has made me realize that the British Legion would do things differently in one of the most important ways possible: they actually talk to me. I think I might go back to them and try and articulate better what the problems with the CAB chappie are.

Mind you, it might be a few days before I do - last week I was mugged by a Customs Officer and that's taking up a lot of my attention at the moment.

Bartels

immoral_angeluk

If you're not happy with the advice/support you're being given by your debt caseworker you need to complain to the bureau manager who will look into the situation. Your advisor must treat you fairly and impartially and it doesn't sound as if this is the case.
Please talk to the bureau manager and don't do anything hasty!

Bartels

Thank you for replying, immoral_angeluk. I've got several weeks before I have to make a decision about how best to approach full and final settlement offers so I hope I'll have a better idea of how to do so by then.

I appreciate how sensible your advice is but at the moment it feels like I've enough on my plate with the debts, the mugging, and the complaint to Southern Housing Group. Approaching the bureau manager could easily improve things but I have a nagging doubt that it might make the Debt Adviser more antagonistic - on several occasions I've been in "no-win" situations with him and it would be easy enough for him to appear conscientious but set up another. Basically, with the possibility of an end to my debt problems in sight, I just want to find the easiest way of making it happen.

Whichever way I choose to try and make settlements, however, I might talk to the bureau manager once the debts are out of the way.

Bartels