cccs help

michelle1985_2

hi we started a debt management plan with the cccs last month and when we got a statement from our bank today it had at the bottom all the charges which all together added up to £103 a month we will be getting charged for the overdraft. how will it get paid off if they keep adding these charges on every month i dont know whether to ring the bank or what should i do. Thanks michelle

newlywed

Hi michelle,
To begin with the banks do tend to charge interest. It usually takes 2 or 3 months for them to agree to the dmp and stop interest. I think it's when they see you are serious about the dmp and actually get payments Mint took 4 months.

Stick with it and just give them a few months to get their act together and you should start to see the debt fall after that

michelle1985_2

ok thanks alot thats put my to rest

hillbilly5

We began a DMP with CCCS on 1st March 2008.

We had banked with Halifax for years and years and had informed them of our DMP early on in Feb 2008. We cancelled all our direct debits/standing orders on our account and made sure that when we stopped using our bank account with halifax we were within the overdraft limit.

When Halifax received notification of our DMP they should have cancelled a standing order that was taken monthly from the account to pay a Halifax Loan that we have - they didn't. This resulted in charges of £35 each time the loan couldn't be paid from the account.

I sent letters to the branch - never got any replies from them. Eventually I got to speak to someone who agreed to cancel all future charges that were due to come out May/June and they confirmed that Halifax should have stopped the Loan standing order back in Feb when we told them about the dmp with CCCS. She was really helpful and sent a note to the branch for them to deal with all the charges since Feb until May. I got a letter back yesterday saying that as it 'wasn't their fault that the account went over the overdraft limit' they wouldn't refund the charges. Another telephone call to Halifax and after 26 minutes (!) the gentleman confirmed that it was an error on their part and that they would be refunding all the charges in full.

Out of all our creditors, Halifax have been the worst to deal with as they never reply to letters and it is difficult to get to speak to the correct people to deal with your problem.

I am happy now as not only have we already paid £117 off our original £450 overdraft but we are also getting another £70 of charges refunded and have had all other charges due to come out refunded also as Halifax made a mistake.

We also found it helpful to use the standard letter that is (I think) on the National Debtline website which helps you to put your case to the creditor about stalling interest to enable you to pay your debt to them asap.

After having been on the dmp now for 5 mths we only have about 2 creditors who are still charging interest - just giving them a bit of time and hopefully they will come round!!

Good luck - it does get easier especially when you start to see that the monthly payment you make each month is bringing down what you are owing visibly!!;)