DMP Mutual Support Thread (Part 4)

Nicki_Sue

Woo hoo!

Am due to start dmp on 1st Oct - and the one thing on my budget thats been bugging me is my BT phone/bband bundle. Its £58 a month! (Ouch!). Of course I rang them and looked at reducing it etc but was told I was tied into an 18month contract because we took out the wi-fi package whenwe moved in Feb and to my horror was told that we owed £100+ in call charges that werent being covered by our direct debit because our anytime call package hadnt been transferred when w moved (we did ask for it!). So have been pretty down about this and last night was browsing and I can get skit tv, line rental, calls and 8mb broadband for £50 from sky (then we wouldnt use the £20 entertainment budget) so efectively £30. OR Tiscaliphone & bband for £23.23 a month for 6 months and ££28.23 after that - so £30 saving. I rang BT to see what we now owed and how long exactly we had left on the contract as I was considering adding it dmp as my advisor suggested.

NOTHING! I owe nothing and they suggested I drop my direct debit to £50 a month and my 18m contract...... doesnt exist. I can leave in December or upgrade/look for a cheaper package in October. IfI leave in Dec I will owe them £61 as my call plan package and line rental as on a offer so last until April, but at the moment - they owe ME £35! So I'm free to leave and save a fortune. I asked to be transferred to billing AND then bband services after speaking to telephone services because I needed to be sure (and convinced) that the £100+ I owed them had gone and all three confirmed this. SO pleased - its been driving me bananas!!! I received an aplogy from one operator who said the advice Id been given about my "debt" and contract was completely false and asked when I rang. It was 7/8 weeks ago but the last time my account was opened falling a call was the beginning of June so whomever spoke to me didnt access my account to check my account details - maybe checked someone elses?
Doesnt sound much but £30 extra a month will make a huge difference seeing as its nearly half a weeks food, cleaning mats andnappies budget for all 3 of us. YAY!

newlywed

I'd just like to say... when I started my DMP first direct were the first to respond, were incredibly nice, reduced interest to 6.2% immediately, seemed very understanding....

In fact they seemed so nice that I thought once I'd paid off my DMP, I would move all my accounts back to them....

Now that their payments have reduced a little they have offered me a 12 month loan where the final payment must be over £5k :eek: to finish the balance owed.

AND they have written to me yesterday to tell me they are increasing interest on the account to 16% and BACKDATING IT to the middle of August :mad: :mad:

Can they do that? The backdating interest bit? They only informed me this week, surely they can't inform me in SEPTEMBER that the interest changes from 11 August????? :mad:

They'd best hurry up and default me or else I'll be popping over to the bankruptcy board

Kudox

Hi everyone, just thought i'd post to say I've actually plucked up the courage tonight to answer the phone myself which I have'nt done in about two months in case it was from one or other of my creditors! Pathetic I know.
Anyway nowhere near as scary as I was expecting, capital One were horrible but RBS were fine and the guy at Egg actually said he hoped things would get better in the future.
I know the guy at egg was just one member of staff, i suppose it depends who you get but I have been really dreading it for so long and thanks to you guys and the advice I've gotten from this site and my upcoming DMP with CCCS I finally feel that I've taken back a little bit of control.
No more unplugging the phone from now on Yay !:D

Rabbit-in-headlights

you're braver than me, Kudox! :T :T

Kudox

Thanks I dont feel that brave just a bit better at this moment, could be a different story tomorrow!

cocker100

Hi all,

Just thought I would share my DMP experience with everyone and try and assist where I can.

Well, where do I start? I've been in my DMP for nearly a year now and I must say that the ride has been anything but smooth! Some of my creditors have been really nasty.:mad: We started the plan when things started getting out of control and decided to go with one of the many companies that charge for the service, Harrington Brooks. I know that you can get it for free, but I feel that as they are charging you, they do a better job of negotiating with your creditors because you are making them money. I must say that they have been very good and do provide an exellent service.
Our total unsercured debts are approx £38000 spread accross 6 creditors. Lloyds TSB, Barclaycard, Goldfish (Morgan Stanley), MBNA, Mint and Tesco!!!:eek: :eek: That is 6 credit cards and one overdraft.

The creditors have all behaved very differently. Some very understanding and some extremely cruel. Barclaycard have been really good. They are the only one who hasn't defaulted the account. The account is just in "an arrangement" and all interest has been frozen. Tesco and Mint (both Royal Bank of Scotland) accepted the proposal and stopped the interest, but defaulted the account almost straight away. MBNA were really pushy at the beginning and called us every day for the first few months, even though they knew that Harrington Brooks were dealing with things. Eventually they sold the debt to a third party and defaulted the account, after adding about 3 months worth of interest to the total amount. The debt collection agency then agreed to the proposed repayments. Goldfish and Lloyds TSB have both behaved shockingly. Goldfish wouldn't accept anything and wouldn't listen to anything that was proposed. They kept adding interest and charges for 6 months, adding nearly a grand to the total amount owed, before finally defaulting the account and passing it to a company called Apex. Apex were really understanding and accepted the repayments straight away. Then, after another 2 months, they offered us a settlement figure of £2500. Obviously, we couldn't afford to pay that, so declined. This was gutting, as we owed them over £7000!!! The debt was then sold to a company called 1ST CREDIT LTD..:mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: This company is the scum of the earth and seem to revel in people's money troubles. Their employees are the most rudest people I have ever had dealings with. They talk down to you and actually accuse you of "STEALING" the money because you haven't paid it back! They are not bothered about your personnel circumstances and wont listen to reason. They refused point blank anything that was put to them and then issued an ultimatum. Either pay £99 per month to them or they would start court proceedings. Wasn't really bothered at first as our credit status was already in tatters with all the defaults, so a CCJ wouldn't make that much difference to it. I emailed Harrington Brooks and told them that they should tell them to go and jump. Harrington Brooks then phoned me the next day and said that 1st Credit had said that they would be pushing for the CCJ and that they would also be requesting to the court that we SELL OUR HOUSE TO PAY OFF THE DEBT WE OWED THEM!!!:mad: :eek: :mad: :eek: :mad: :eek: :mad: :eek: I thougt that this wasn't possible because it was an unsecured debt, but appartantly it is. A company can not only put a charge on your house if you sell it at a later date, but can actually apply to make you sell it immediately!!! This completely freaked us out and my partner was extremely upset at the thought of losing our home. After some frantic re-jigging of our finances, mainly be cutting our food budget, (Hard when you have two young children) we have managed to pay the extra each month to them. We actually have to pay them the difference direct because if it went into the DMP fund, it would be split between all our creditors. The only good thing is that it will be cleared in 7 years, rather than 16 years like the others.
Lloyds TSB haven't been much better. They started off ok, probably because I had banked with them for 11 years. They accepted the repayments for my overdraft and after some negotiations from Harrington Brooks, accepted the credit card proposal, albeit without stopping the interest completely. They also registered the account as "in arrangment" rather than default. This went on until the first review at 6 months when they decided to stop co-operating and starting adding more charges to the credit card account. They also stopped communicating with Harrington Brooks and demanded that we start paying at least the minimum payments again. I told them that we couldn't so they started applying more interest to the total owed month after month before finally defaulting the account last month. They have said that they are also going to take us to court. Harrington Brooks have said that they will probably pass it onto a third party rather than go to court, and that they will then start negotionations with them once one has been appointed.

That is where things stand now, but I have an ace up my sleeve. The Goldfish card and Lloyds card both had ppi policies with them and both were mis-sold as I was told that I had to take them out to order to get the cards. I am no stranger to ppi reclaiming, and have already claimed back over £12000 from First Plus, albeit most of it reducing the amount of the loan with them.:j :j :j Anyway, i've just started with these new claims, but if sucessful, could slash the amount I owe to them. How nice that I only had ppi policies on these two cards, the two creditors that have behaved the worst to me.:D
Also, I had a big loan with Lloyds TSB a few year back and this too had a ppi policy with it, again because they said I had to. If I won that claim, then that would completely wipe out all the LLoyds TSB debt. NICE ONE!!!:beer:

Sorry for the long winded story, but thought I would share my experiences with everyone. DMP's are a long and winding road and not always straight forward. I'll keep you updated as things progress.

Cocker

tressls

Hi there,

I am new so bare with me....

I have today looked into a DMP with CCCS. I have posted another thread but basically I owe £15000 maybe a bit less, over 6 creditors, ranging from £100 to £8800. All of these are with debt collection agencies, all have either been paid nothing or token payments, and I have defaults.

I will soon be on a bursary as I start uni as an NHS student nurse, will get £815 a month as I have a dependant. On top of this I will get child tax credits and child benefit.

I worked out I would be able to afford around £150 a month.

I did speak to another co. at first who said a company by the name of Gregory something or other would be able to set up a DMP for me, but I since googled it and found out about CCCS, and so have e-mailed them earlier.

My question simply is- although I suspect everyone is different, if they agree that £150 is what I could afford, and accept that, what happens? Will I be paying all £15k off over payments of £150/month?That would take, at a guess 8 years, and I wanna be debt free in less than that!

Would they cut my debts first, meaning I would pay £150 a month for less?

Please someone tell me how it might work!! I am stumped

maz1964

hiya all new and old,

we have had some newbies and looks likes it been a bit busy last few days, have a look at the posts ,

bye for now maz

maz1964

hiya all new and old,

not been on for a few days, hectic and mbna driving me mad with my sars request and not supplied readable credit card agreements, more letters but i will get there

Anyway, wanted to welcome all the newbies, hiya im on a self managed dmp, its been a great learning curve.

Hello Cocker - totally understand the frustrations, and i can relate to your post, thanks for sharing , it will help others im sure, in the end it all helps us all,
I just wanted to ask you if you have requested a copy of your credit card agreements from all your credit card companies? If not, then i would get yourself a copy, because if they dont supply you with it, then the debt is unenforceable in court, with the amount of debt collections agencies being sold your various debts onto, im suspicious if anyone still has the original cca,
I would have thought that the company you are with would have known that

I can believe parts of what you have been told, ive had experience of the ccj attempt by a company trying to get the ccj for a friend and i attended court, but if you had got to that point, and you were willing to pay something within your means the judge would have possibly granted the ccj and as long as you didnt default on the payments agreed at court, the company could not go for a charging order, i believe this to be so, a charging order can only happen once a ccj has been granted and no payments been maintained,

i feel quite alarmed that your company harrington did not pick this up for you, i think they actually contributed to your distress, im sure others more experienced will be along but i would suggest you contact either cccs or have a look at the nationaldebtline site, i use nationaldebtline all the time and also if you contact them they can send you a useful booklet which tells you lots of info and legal stuff, other lady here Rayday2 recommended them to me when i first came here, you could even call them to clarify the position on the info you were given re ccj and charging order.

Like you say you believe your credit file already bad, so no harm in findng out stuff yourself, i am not impressed by this harrington firm, i would seriously consider a charity and see if you can get your debts taken on by cccs or payplan and therefore also the money fee you pay harrington pay towards your debts.

I also feel that these creditors the ones that have been nasty have not followed the correct proceedures and you should arm yourself with the latest debt collection guidelines. Again the charities and nationaldebtline can help you with this.

Please take care, and dont worry too much, if you can stick around on this forum we will all help you so keep positive.

off to bed, just wanted to leave you a post and will catch up you later in the week,

good night and have a fun day everyone tomorrow
Ciao maz

sarriep

Sorry tressls - if you owe £15000 then surely you expect to pay that much back! A DMP should allow the interest to be frozen but from what I can gather you still pay off the 15000. After all - you spent it! We owe about £49000 and fully intend to pay all of it back.
Once you are earning a wage you will be able to increase your payments and pay it off quicker.
S