Applied to CCCs hope they can help any advice?

lily79_2

Feel sick with worry with all this debt and was wondering if any one has any advice on the process of dealing with CCCs. Is it a long process and do you get harrassed by creditors as I am terrified that if they cant help I don't know what I am going to do about this debt. I have got the paperwork today and I have to send them my statements and send a letter to the credit card companies so I am in the process of sorting out now.
I have worked out I am in £17,500. I have never been late with a payment but I have had to take a pay cut and so I am only scraping through to pay minimum payments every month and have virtually nothing to live on after petrol to work so baked beans have become very appealing. Any advice would be really appreciated as I just don't know where to turn its not something I really want to share with my friends right now as I feel very ashamed for getting in this mess in the first place and just want to be debt free and never see a credit card application form ever again.
Thanks

GeorgeUK

Hi Lily

If you post up a SOA, we may be able to offer some suggestions on saving or reducing the interest on some of the debt.
The calculator is quite handy for that.
http://www.makesenseofcards.com/soacalc.html

If you are managing the minimum payments then it gives us a good place to start off.
Welcome to MSE.

jacnorm

Hi there, when we first contacted CCCS we had not missed any payments but, we knew we could not keep it up any longer and all I can say is they were great. We did still get some contact from creditors but it does die down after a while, all I did with each one was to keep telling them it was all being dealt with by CCCs. It did not take long at all to get the dmp set up and we felt like a huge weight had been lifted off us. Good luck and I hope it goes well. Jacqui

lily79_2

Thanks for the replies. I am going to send off the information to cccs tomorrow. And I will do my budget list tomorrow and post here as any advice will be so appreciated. I
Its so nice to be able to talk to people without feeling judged I would never be able to discuss this with my social circle i would be far too embarrassed. I just feel by getting the ball rolling I may be able to get a bit of this weight lifted off my shoulders once for all.I know I am in for a hard slog and I m hoping i may see light at the end of the tunnel once I know for sure I only have to pay one monthly payment a month to clear my debt once and for all.
Thanks again
Lily

ailsajayne27

hey well done for posting in the first place!

From my experience of CCCS:
don't worry about letters / calls off your creditors. Keep making your payments if you can, if not offer token payments and tell them you have signed up with CCCS.... I did the debt advice online and had my dmp set up within a month!! I did get letters etc but I told my creditors that I would only deal with them by letter! It's amazing that now three months in they are still leaving me alone you have done the right thing! I would say that when you produce your figures always over estimate how much you need as it will give you a buffer in case of emergencies! But cccs do automatically ad in money for glasses and if you have a car servicing etc! It'a a really good way to sort out exactly what you have spare! they will give you an amount for petrol and food and if yours if defferent then let them know for eg my petrol was 250 per month for work and they were fine with that, and I was told £140 for food and toiletries but I only spend around £100 so I have kept that £40 as spare money.... most of my creditors have stopped the charges so my date for clearing them isn't that much different to that from paying min payment only!

The other great thing is if your circumstances change or you have a really bad month (i.e. my car service was double what I had been told it would be) if you speak to them they will allow a reduced payment that month or reassess your payments overall, similarly if you have more spare money and you want to pay of more they deal with it all! I had tried to arrange lesser payments with my creditors myself and they were rude and nasty... this way the CCCS will effectively take the worst away from you!!!!