DMP Mutual Support Thread (Part 4)

simbalou

Just wanted to fill people in on our contact with creditors because I know it's the thing I was dreading most going through my dmp.

So far CCCS has sent the plan to all of my creditors, egg have been in touch by letter and I sent them a secure message online which they acknowledged and then immediately demanded payment. I'm just biding my time with them until they get in touch again!

Morgan Stanley called me at 8.45 this morning, very nice lady who has frozen my account for 3 weeks to give all the paperwork time to be done. They didn't demand payment just took all my details.

Marbles rang last weekend and again they were quite nice. Although they did ask for payment they took all my CCCS details and have frozen my account for 2 weeks.

So far so good, I'm sure I will have hassle with some of my creditors but for the tme being I'm quite happy how things are going. This month has been a struggle for money, husbands car needed to be repaired and kids needed new shoes but we managed to get the money together and pay cash. We have food in the cupboard so we are not going hungry and that's the most important thing to me!

Have a good weekend everyone x

loopylu36

Tigert wrote: »

Hi,

CCCS's way of basing pro rata payments on the contractual payment rather than the amount of debt seems a bit odd to me. I'm with Payplan and thay base it on the debt rather than the payment.

I think I prefer that - one of my smaller creditors (a catalogue) had a reasonablly small debt but the contractual payments were large, they would have ended up getting 3 * as much as my biggest creditor. Seems wrong to me.

Sorry - doesn't help much. As said before if this is causing a problem with creditors you could always manage your own DMP or even switch to Payplan who calculate the payments differently

I think that is a better way of doing it,(Payplan way) it seems to make more sense. I think I am going to switch to doing my own DMP - from what I have read Payplan are much stricter on the budget than CCCS (which is why I chose them in the first place). Don't get me wrong, they have been helpful, but it's just the NR issue - if it wasn;t for them I don't think I would really be having any problems at all. And CCCS know that NR nearly always go for a CCJ and C/O so you would think they would advise you to keep the payments high - I don't see how other creditors could say that they were not being treated fairly if you did that, because surely the largest debt should equal the largest repayment ?

Numpty_Monkey

Well i got accepted for a A&L account got the confirmation email this morning
and £50 to come from going through Quidco

Got to get my paper work sorted at some stage today
Can't send copies of letter to creditors till Tuesday(scanner is broke)

simbalou

Another little update on my weekend....

Post came today and Tesco Loans (underwritten by RBS) have accepted my dmp. That's one of my biggest creditors who we owe over 5k to and are now accepting £15.13 instead of their monthly payment of £115. They put up no arguements and didn't even default us.

I was worried after reading about how cccs distribute their payments with people saying they prefer payplans system but now I'm happy. I only have 2 creditors that are over 5k and now that one has accepted I feel like half the worry is gone, just got to wait for good old egg to stick their heels in now!

Well done Numpty Monkey on getting cashback on your account, I love getting my cheques through from those websites (got £10 Argos voucher today and £4 worth of luncheon vouchers through the post today aswell from survey sites)

Enjoy the weekend

Gemmzie

simbalou - Egg were our biggest and were fine, they just defaulted and then accepted payments no problem. Also, if you have a majority acceptance, they tend to give in easier. Good luck

rayday2

ikkle87 wrote: »

Hi there guys could I join please?

Also one or two of my creditors I have not made payment to as I was trying to stick to a couple of contracted payments for higher debts, is this ok? and should I still just send them a token payment of a £1?

Thanks in advance.

Ikkle 87

Added you to the group number 216.

£1 token payments are fine at least that way the offer of payments are bound to be higher. If you picked say £10 and then some only got offered £2 they would turn round and say well you could afford £10 last month if that makes sense.

Big welcome btw!

brassmonkey_2

Hi everyone,

Ive been seriously considering the DMP route now for a while, just got loads of questions floating around that hopefully some of you could answer.

1) How long does the whole thing affect your credit record for?

2) In the event of an emergency, when no back up money is available what could you do, e.g washing machine breaks down etc?

3) Do they allow a budget for driving lessons or is this classed as non essential?

4) Are you allowed to budget for a social life or even a holiday?

this is it for now, until more keep popping into my head.

Any help would be much appreciated.

ald65

brassmonkey wrote: »

Hi everyone,

Ive been seriously considering the DMP route now for a while, just got loads of questions floating around that hopefully some of you could answer.

1) How long does the whole thing affect your credit record for?

2) In the event of an emergency, when no back up money is available what could you do, e.g washing machine breaks down etc?

3) Do they allow a budget for driving lessons or is this classed as non essential?

4) Are you allowed to budget for a social life or even a holiday?

this is it for now, until more keep popping into my head.

Any help would be much appreciated.

Hi Brassmonkey

I am no expert and I am sure someone will come along soon who can answer all your quetions, however until they do I will try and answer some of them.

1.approx six years from your last default

2. try and put a small amount away each month in case of emergencies, the food allowance is pretty generous and we are usually able to save from that;)

3. I dont think that driving lessons would be allowed in budget , however may be wrong

4. again the food allowance etc is pretty generous and we try to budget from that for any social events etc [not managed a holiday yet!]

We are with Payplan and they have been brilliant

good luck whatever you decide to do

brassmonkey_2

Thanks for that ald65. So is there an official/unofficial list that are classed as essentials so i know roughly what I can realistically budget for?

Got my appointment with payplan on wed evening so I want to be semi prepared. Thing is with my wife not being able to drive I cannot see our situation improving, however if she continues to learn when she passes she can seek work etc etc.

How easy is it to open another bank account and transfer all our direct debits etc etc? Any reccomendations? we bank with lloyds tsb. Also with me being employed by my own limited company I also have a business account with lloyds so would I have to change this as well??

thanks.

ald65

There is an official list apparantly. you should be able to find it on the link in the payplan website [sorry not very computer literate, however i'm sure someone will come along who can direct you to a link].
Payplan allowed us money for clothes , haircuts, pets , glasses etc. and to be honest we found that we were then able to use these allowances towards our own priorities. It may well be that i you could do the same towards driving lessons.
We opened another bank account prior to entering our dmp and payplan were really good at ensuring our wages were in the new account before they took any payments etc.
I think the main thing is to ensure that your new bank doesn't have any links to any of your creditors , howver again payplan were really good at advising on that one.
Afraid that I cant answer the business account question , hopefully someone else will come on line who can!
I found the appointment with payplan really reassuring and we havn't looked back since then, financially we no longer rob Peter to pay Paul and are able to sleep at night.
Wish you well for Wed