loosing battle

wheredoiturn

hi everyone, just over 2 years ago my wife and i ran up unsecured debts of just under £15000 on various credit cards and unsecured loans. we were out of our depth and after some advice contacted pay plan, they were very good after going through our finances they came up with a repayment plan and negotiated with our various creditors, much to our relief and all the pressure we were under seem to lift although not completely, as you know you still have debt, but we were happy with the thought of starting to pay back what we owe and living in a cash only enviroment. we have regular reviews and everything seem to be going fine. that was until i started receiving statements from Halifax, we both have seperate credit cards with them and for the past 4 months they have been putting interest and late payment charges on our accounts, we pay approx £15 a month each to the accounts and the interest is £51 and late fee of £12, so what we have been paying over the last 2 years to clear this debt seems to have been a waste of time and is all but wiped out :mad: i recieved a phone call from halifax last night asking if i was able to pay off the debts, we cannot and i asked about the interest and late fees they are adding and was told they had stopped the charges for 2 years now they are putting them back on and wont stop them:mad: . i have contacted pay plan a few times but nothing is happening, we really dont know what to do, all the other creditors seem happy with our repayment plan, halifax our really stressing and upsetting us, we can never clear their debt with the charges they are piling on and my wife and myself feel like we our back to square one. can anyone help advise pse as we dont know what to do, we have considered a secured loan but really do not want to risk our house, we have always managed to pay our mortgage payments and the house is all we have. we thought we were getting somewhere and began to get our lives back now we just feel downtrodden and so fed up. payplan our a free service but i have my doubts, they take £10 from what we pay for insurance if one of us dies the debts our paid, also the phone number to call them is no longer free and costs approx £1 a min do we try and negotiate ourselves very reluctant to do this tried last time and creditors not nice or helpful, any help advice would be so appreciated thankyou

Poosmate

Hi, sorry to hear about this mess.

I can't really advise you as I don't really know much about DMP's except to keep trying to contact PayPlan through email or letter.

Hopefully someone will be along soon who know's more about PayPlan and will be able to advise you better but in the meantime I just thought I'd give this a little bump to keep it on page 1.

Poo

Oh I just remembered, I believe if you are on a DMP through one of the charity debt advisor places you wouldn't be able to take out a loan anyway because it's against the rules or agreement of the DMP.

Tigert

Hi,

I'm with Payplan - The phone number is certainly not £1 a minute, there is either the 0800 number on the website or the number to get through to your case worker is an 0844 (Local Rate No). You also don't have to take out their insurance if you don't want to.

Regarding Halifax - I don't have them as a creditor, but there are a lot of people on the forum having exactly the same issue as you. Unfortunately no-one can make them stop interest. You can of course try negotiating yourself as you sugest.

Please don't take out another loan - that would have interest anyway so you would be no better off and it would also break the terms of your DMP, so you might find other creditors also adding interest.

Hope you get it sorted.

10past6

wheredoiturn wrote: »

we really dont know what to do, all the other creditors seem happy with our repayment plan

Send this letter to Halifax:

Your address

Date

Creditor / DCA address

Dear Sir/Madam

Acc/Ref No XXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Thank you for your letter of XX – XX - XXXXX concerning the above account. We are sorry that you feel unable to suspend interest charges on the above account.

The majority of our other creditors have agreed to the offer of payment and agreed to suspend any interest charges still accruing. They have accepted that to continue to charge interest would not assist us in our present financial difficulties, and can only serve to increase our total debt.

As you are aware, we have already paid considerable sums in interest to our account. If interest charges continue, the monthly instalments we are paying will not even cover that interest. Also the co−operation of our other creditors who have agreed to freeze interest already would be put at risk.

We would therefore be grateful if you would reconsider your decision not to freeze the interest. This would mean that the monthly payments we make would actually reduce the balance outstanding to your company.

We look forward to hearing from you as soon as possible.

Yours faithfully

wheredoiturn wrote: »

Halifax our really stressing and upsetting us

If Halifax refuse, then appeal against their decision using their complaints procedure, if that fails, then you can register a complaint against them, but you must GO THROUGH THEIR OWN COMPLAINTS PROCDURE FIRST!

wheredoiturn wrote: »

they take £10 from what we pay for insurance if one of us dies the debts our paid

Cancel this if you feel you cannot afford it, post in the insurance forum on this site, see of you can get a cheaper deal.

wheredoiturn wrote: »

also the phone number to call them is no longer free and costs approx £1 a min

I'm with Payplan, I'm not aware of their telephone rates being £1.00 pm, rest assured, if that was correct, they'd have been hounded on this forum.

Why not correspond with Payplan via email. I never call them, I communicate via email, they always reply usually the same day.

Hang on in there, yes, it is stressful, but dealing with debts is never easy, you'll get there in the end.

wheredoiturn

thankyou so much for your repsonses, have copied and amended the letter format. Not sent yet, waiting for a response from payplan and any advice they have.