Website for your own DMP

thaylock

After helping 3 people with their debts/budgets & successfully dealing with their debts I have decided to develop a FREE Web site to help people put together their own DMP (I decided to start on the site after finding out DMP companies charge 17%, except payplan which seems to offer an excellent service free of charge).

The Web site is still under construction but should be ready within the next month. Essentially this is what it does:

1. You enter your personal budget
2. You enter your creditors & the amount you owe
3. You click 'Generate Letters' & it generates letters to your creditors offering pro-rata/token or no payments.

Note: The details you enter are stored in a database so you will have a permanent record of your budget/creditors - this means you can re-visit your budget/creditor details at any time. You don't have to provide your correct personal details, once the letters have been generated you can copy & paste the letters into Word & then enter your correct details before sending the letters of.

3 simple steps & you have done pretty much what a DMP does but it will be FREE & you will have complete control over it.

Does anyone think this Web site will be of any use ? I get the feeling people posting threads about their debt simply don't know where to start, hopefully my Web site will provide people with some help in dealing with creditors pretty quickly - letters to be sent to your creditors could be generated very quickly (depends on the time it takes for you to enter your budget/creditors details).

Any feedback would be appreciated.

homersimpson_3

you asked for feedback - sorry if some of it sounds critical but best to be honest-
1. Your spot on with initial statement "I get the feeling people posting threads about their debt simply don't know where to start" & this website could be of enormous benefit.
2. Like idea of people not supplying correct personal details- addresses my initial thoughts over data protection.
3. my other thought was ok it's free but what are you gettting out of this? will you be making money because people will have to click on things. how long will it be free?
4. how good are these standard letters- who are drafted them- they need to come from some reputable source- what evidence do you have these letters work- just the 3 people you have helped out? we are dealing with 'real' people and their financial future. there is not some college project or hypothetical situation. people are already is a mess and don't need to go further down their hole!.
5. before this site goes live you need to user test it- how will you do this? family and friends arguably too subjective- are you asking people to do this?
6. will website work out how much to offer each creditor? if so how?
7. site should contain information about dmp in simple clear plain english- concise and to the point- most people don't even know what dmp stands for -you need a basic guide etc.

thaylock

3. It will be free, I have no plans to charge a fee at any time. I work full time in IT & I am developing this site in my spare time to help people in debt - just through my experience with 3 people & I have found people just don't know what to do - as somebody who has no debt maybe I just want to help people in debt. I will be seeing the CAB in January (they recruit 3 times per year) & I will be looking to offer my IT services & whatever else they want free of charge. If people want to use the Web site then great, if they don't then great. In fact if anything this Web site will cost me money in setting it up.

4. These standard letters work, I have sent 18 off in total & received a positive response from all but one of them. Once the Web site is operational people can judge for themselves.

5. I work in IT, I know all about user acceptance (or as you call it user test)

6. Yes the Web site will work out how much to offer each creditor - simple pro-rata calculation or token payments or no payments based on the info keyed.

Thanks for your feedback, much appreciated.

p.s. If I wanted to make money out of my Web I would have placed an ad in the papers, I certainly wouldn't have posted it here.

jaxxy00

Thaylock, good on you for offering such a service. I can understand homersimpson as im sure there are also others out there who are thinking 'well what are you getting out of it as people dont do things for nothing'. People have to understand though that although it seems these days it doesnt hapen very often you do get people, like yourself, who want to offer help and not make anything from it. Other than the satisfaction of knowing you have helped that person. A lot of people these days are money orientated which is a shame although sometimes neccessary i suppose depending on circumstances. So i hope it goes well for you and many people benefit from your help.

frugglewump

I would have loved to find a website like that when i realised there was a problem. If it ever gets to the point where i have to send letters to people i am really bad at making it look official and quoting relevant things at people.

bargainqueen_2

That's a really fabulous and generous idea thaylock. In my opinion, it will help endless people who just don't have the lingo to draft official letters, and it also gives people hope when they think they have nowhere to turn.
Personally, I think it deserves a big thank you.

thaylock

Thanks for your feedback. Before I go live with my Web site I will e-mail Martin Lewis to get his opinion & also make sure he has no objections to me posting details about my Web site.

Turning_into_scrooge

Your information is slightly misleading. Not only are Pay plan a free service but the consumer credit counselling service and nation debt line are as well.

Xbigman

I generally don't trust these sorts of do it all websites. Its too easy to put in figures that are unrealistic. If you go through CCCS or the other free services they do exactly this but a human looks at your proposed DMP and can advise you on your budget. If you massively underestimate how much you spend on something and you DMP is unaffordable you will have shot yourself in the foot in trying to negotiate a realistic DMP later.
Now if you set up a site where people posting on the debt free board can go to create a SOA in a format suitable for copying into an MSE thread, so they have a standardised lay out, that would be usefull. Your current suggestion goes a bit too far. Just my thoughts.
Regards



X

thaylock

Turning_into_scrooge wrote:

Your information is slightly misleading. Not only are Pay plan a free service but the consumer credit counselling service and nation debt line are as well.

I agree with your point, but I didn't set out to state all of the free services.

thaylock

Xbigman wrote:

I generally don't trust these sorts of do it all websites. Its too easy to put in figures that are unrealistic. If you go through CCCS or the other free services they do exactly this but a human looks at your proposed DMP and can advise you on your budget. If you massively underestimate how much you spend on something and you DMP is unaffordable you will have shot yourself in the foot in trying to negotiate a realistic DMP later.
Now if you set up a site where people posting on the debt free board can go to create a SOA in a format suitable for copying into an MSE thread, so they have a standardised lay out, that would be usefull. Your current suggestion goes a bit too far. Just my thoughts.
Regards



X

I agree with your points. To allow people to make up their own minds about my Web I will allow them to log in as a guest to see a demo of how it works & the letters it can generate, if they like what they see then they can log in & use it for their own personal use (free of charge). My intended audience for my Web are people who prefer to sort out their own debt problems instead of relying on a DMP company (they do an excellent job) to do it for them. I may even decide not to make it available unless people specifically ask me for the link - this may be the best option then people can get to know about it through personal recommendations.

Anyway, I will not publish details about my Web on this forum unless it is approved by MSE/Martin Lewis.