DMP Mutual Support Thread - Part 12

Dandytf · 21 May 2018 at 3:31PM

When SC advise against increased payments.
My 2 year plan is in temporary disarray since calling SC today.
Don't get me wrong, I can still acheive the increased payments with another budget review either by telephone or online if I can make the numbers match.
Anyway some valid points made by their nice advisor, such as do I want to give up another £30 per month to reduce plan by 1 year (considering I'm ill etc) -valid point (though what I chose not to say was I have my new savings account which could have reduced my plan to 2 years total to complete)
After some slight convincing and considerations I agreed to let current plan run without any further increases.
Hope I've made the correct decision.
Am I the only dmp'r who wants the considerable completion time reduced significantly.

Nicosy · 21 May 2018 at 4:36PM

Annec1414 wrote: »

So I've been up all night reading as much as I possibly can about DMPs etc... you might have seen my earlier post about 'taking the plunge' and I'm feeling a little more confident now.

So this evening, I cancelled my credit card / loan direct debits (gulp) - I've never missed a payment so this was a big step! Am I right in following the following steps....
give it a couple of weeks, then contact card / loan companies saying i'm dealing with SC and they will be in touch, but can they freeze interest / not call me! (next lot of payments not due till mid June)

Use this time to save for my emergency fund - my bank account isn't linked to any debt (first direct) - debt with Tesco / MBNA

Review my budget and make sure I've got enough to live on

Send back my stepchange application end of june?

Also - i'm confused about default notices - what does this mean and why are they a good thing?

Learning so much from you all, thank you.
x

Well done on turning research into action! :beer:

Suseka97 · 22 May 2018 at 11:09AM

Dandytf wrote: »

When SC advise against increased payments.
My 2 year plan is in temporary disarray since calling SC today.
Don't get me wrong, I can still acheive the increased payments with another budget review either by telephone or online if I can make the numbers match.
Anyway some valid points made by their nice advisor, such as do I want to give up another £30 per month to reduce plan by 1 year (considering I'm ill etc) -valid point (though what I chose not to say was I have my new savings account which could have reduced my plan to 2 years total to complete). After some slight convincing and considerations I agreed to let current plan run without any further increases. Hope I've made the correct decision.
Am I the only dmp'r who wants the considerable completion time reduced significantly.

I'm pleased to hear SC advised you not to increase your payments, and it doesn't matter that you have some savings (you need to have that as an EF because you never know what life will throw at you). I was like you several years back - when SC actually kept our budget really tight in order to get to a position to pay off our rather substantial debt in 5 years. We actually continued to increase our payments at the annual reviews, but on retrospect we should not have. The DMP eventually became unsustainable and we were living almost hand to mouth. There were times when we couldn't afford fuel for the car and so my hubby had to cycle to work -other times we had to cut back on food, spent no money on birthdays/Christmas etc. It was grim for a while. This was all because I had the mindset that I needed to, or rather should, pay off the debt as quickly as possible.

That was then and last year (2017) with only 1 year to go I went self-managed and dropped the DMP payments down considerably and so wish I'd done that a lot sooner. We live and learn, but my advice now to all newcomers and those already established in a DMP is to take the long road. It's not a race and once defaulted, it really doesn't matter how long it takes you to pay it off. After 6 years it drops off your credit file regardless of whether you still owe money or not.

Had I stayed with SC I would have been able to claim myself totally debt-free a month or so ago - but as you'll see I still have balances outstanding. I'm no longer bothered about that and happy to stall payments whilst debts remain UE -and I wouldn't have done that a year or two ago, for sure.

heavenlyharry01 · 22 May 2018 at 11:52AM

Hi I posted the other day, but I think it may have been missed. I know the board can move quickly sometimes.

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Hi

It’s been a long time since I’ve posted.
Self managed DMP.

I’ve managed to do a number of partial settlements of our 11 debts. Bringing the total now down to 5.
The tricky ones we have found are creation, capital one and very.

I have a question to anyone with experience or advice with Very.

My husband and I both had very accounts. We were paying £1 token payments to each account, for over 1 year. They defaulted my husbands and sold it on to Lowell, which we have since settled.

My account, they refused to default or sell on. I wrote to them a number of times and in the last letter they pretty much stated they would only default if I stopped the token payments.
I have stopped the token payments and now I’m receiving letters from Very in which they have added admin charges.
I haven’t written to them since I’ve stopped paying as I was hoping they would default me and the best course of action might be to ignore them.....but obviously I do not want admin charges building up.
Should I hold fire and not contact them or should I contact them and state I can’t pay them anything at the moment?

Also has anyone any experience of Creation?
We have two accounts, one credit card (defaulted) and one loan. I have set up a payment plan on the credit card but not on the loan. The correspondence from them is terrible. They don’t reply to letters, they don’t acknowledge them, send the same letters over and over again. I wondered if anyone had similar dealings?

Thank you

Scammie · 22 May 2018 at 2:53PM

Thanks once again for all the advice on this forum. I have followed it and have now done my budget with SC, notified creditors, am waiting on my application forms from SC ( almost two weeks and I haven’t reviewed it though, which seems long) and am intending on starting my payments with SC on 1 st Sept, allowing me to pay off my mum and save for SC.
BC have paused interest for 30 days but MBNA have said they won’t until they receive all my details from SC, even though I gave them my reference number. So my question is can I ask them to refund these charges later and also as I don’t plan to start SC payment until Sept, should I notify creditors of this after the 30 days grace is up and make some one off token payments in the interim? If so should I do this online as DDs are cancelled? Many thanks

joesab · 23 May 2018 at 12:41AM

hello
i have a dmp and at 200 per month it is really stretching my funds. I MAY be able to raise a bit of money to pay it off - its approx 1400 - this was the figure they gave me when i called . I asked if i would get a reduced amount if I called to pay it off. They said 1 - if i called up to pay them it would have to be the full amount as owed on the day 2 - the creditors may accept a lower figure to settle if i called them individually BUT doing this will result in my credit file being affected.
My question is this - surely my credit file is affected anyway by the fact that I have this DMP?
Also, if I pay off each creditor, will I need to pay anything to the DMP company?
Thanks

Rosie1001 · 23 May 2018 at 5:50AM

Update ....

I got a letter demanding full payment of my balance or debt will be passed on to recovery

Do I ignore this letter or contact them , I had my default letter a few weeks ago and ignored that

I can't remember what Lloyds said to do about this letter , ignore or respond

Thanks in advance

January2015 · 23 May 2018 at 8:03AM

joesab wrote: »

hello
i have a dmp and at 200 per month it is really stretching my funds. I MAY be able to raise a bit of money to pay it off - its approx 1400 - this was the figure they gave me when i called . I asked if i would get a reduced amount if I called to pay it off. They said 1 - if i called up to pay them it would have to be the full amount as owed on the day 2 - the creditors may accept a lower figure to settle if i called them individually BUT doing this will result in my credit file being affected.
My question is this - surely my credit file is affected anyway by the fact that I have this DMP?
Also, if I pay off each creditor, will I need to pay anything to the DMP company?
Thanks

You don't say who is managing your DMP for you but if you are with one of the debt charities, e.g. Stepchange or National Debtline, and you put forward a settlement figure, they will usually contact your creditors and make the offer for you.

However, in reality you are better off contacting your creditors directly and offering a settlement figure. Make sure you use the National Debtline template letter when making offers.

Your credit file was affected the moment you entered a DMP and stopped making the regular level of payments to your debts - so don't be concerned that making a settlement offer will make it any worse.

joesab · 23 May 2018 at 11:20AM

Thanks- its with a company called gregory pennington. So if my creditors accept my offers will i then have any further obligations to gregory penningotn? Are they likely to ask for a payment to them?

I wont be able to pay all the creditors in one go so will still have to be paying monthly payments to Gregory Penningotn. Could I reduce these until i have another chance to make another offer to a creditor?

Suseka97 · 23 May 2018 at 11:28AM

heavenlyharry01 wrote: »

Hi I posted the other day, but I think it may have been missed. I know the board can move quickly sometimes........
I have a question to anyone with experience or advice with Very. My husband and I both had very accounts. We were paying £1 token payments to each account, for over 1 year. They defaulted my husbands and sold it on to Lowell, which we have since settled. My account, they refused to default or sell on. I wrote to them a number of times and in the last letter they pretty much stated they would only default if I stopped the token payments.
I have stopped the token payments and now I’m receiving letters from Very in which they have added admin charges. I haven’t written to them since I’ve stopped paying as I was hoping they would default me and the best course of action might be to ignore them.....but obviously I do not want admin charges building up. Should I hold fire and not contact them or should I contact them and state I can’t pay them anything at the moment?

Also has anyone any experience of Creation?
We have two accounts, one credit card (defaulted) and one loan. I have set up a payment plan on the credit card but not on the loan. The correspondence from them is terrible. They don’t reply to letters, they don’t acknowledge them, send the same letters over and over again. I wondered if anyone had similar dealings? Thank you

I haven't responded sooner because I have no direct experience of either of these companies. But I've read other posts that suggest 'Very' is quite difficult to deal with. It doesn't really matter if they add on admin charges for a while, yes -it'll increase the balance but then if you have stopped paying altogether (and continue to do so) they will eventually default you. I'd send one letter stating you are re-evaluating your financial situation and are currently unable to make any further payments -leave it for 6 months and see what happens.

As for Creation - are you meaning you are not paying anything on the loan in order to force a default? If so then just continue not paying them and just keep an eye on letters in case they finally contact you with some sort of 'notice before action' which is a precursor for court action. If you get one of those you simply set up a payment plan.

I hope that's of some help.

DMP Mutual Support Thread - Part 12

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