Hi, I hope this is the right thread for this posting. I have been reading the advice on the site and it is so helpful. We are in the process of taking control of our money, which is something we should have done ages ago - and part of that is understanding how and why we got into debt. The thing is I have been looking at current account mortgages. My husband is self employed, and salary varies drastically each month. As we've been struggling he ended up using the money he needs to put by for tax. My salary also varies month to month. This has made it really hard to manage or budget. My plan is to snowball our debt as much as poss until next year when our mortgage is up for renewal. Then I think if we put all our remaining debt into a current mortgage account it could work out better for us, in that we'll have reduced our monthly outgoings,(by reducing the interest on our borrowing) and can leave the tax money and any surplus in the account reducing our interest on the overall mortgage debt. At the end of the year we can pay the tax, our mortgage interest would go back up again and then we can start the process again. What I'd like to know is given that we both have variable incomes, and including the additional debt added in we would still have around 50% equity on our home does this sound sensible ? Are there any dangers that I might not have considered? the main danger I can see is that we will have to keep a very tight rein on our budget and not be tempted to overspend, and MUST ensure that the mortgage debt is reducing in line with the plan so we do reduce the time it takes to pay it all off. Any advice?

yep I suppose so ....but I just don't like to think that is why !

Hi, this company is so awful, driven me to distraction! They overcharged us by billing us twice for the same period, we disputed this asking for a simple statement so we could see what was going on....3 months later, and at least a dozen phone calls still no statement, and they had passed our name to a debt agency !! I spoke to so many people from all around the world !! - well ok, India and South Africa to be specific , all of them promise each time to arrange statements etc. Eventually we were given a full credit (still without even seeing a statement!). But still we recieved numerous calls from the debt agency. The debt agency said they couldn't remove our name until TalkTalk notify them. six more weekly calls over four weeks before I managed to get TalkTalk to inform the debt agency to stop contacting us as we didn't owe any money! The customer service departments are utterly useless, they say they are not able to write to us as they don't do this anymore !!! I asked for emails then to confirm what has been agreed. Nope, thats not possible either! WHY DO THEY INSIST THAT EVERYTHING IS DONE VERBALLY?! When the thing isn't done and you call back you discover that there are no notes on the file regarding the previous conversation and then they say that they are very sorry but if there is no record of a phone call there is nothing they can do! I do actually write down names of who I speak to, but no one ever knows who they are , or how to get hold of them! This is no way to conduct business. The one good thing about this is that through their own inefficiency and my constant calling they credited me for the error and also a bill that I did actually owe! Sorry to be ranting but I am hold to then yet again at the moment, but if there is anything here of any use to you in making a complaint please use it !!

Hiya Vandermerwe, just wanted to say hello back to you as you were so kind as to offer to meet me here! I had a look at a spread sheet.....that was scary !! Found myself a cute avatar too! Anyway I have been reading threads for hours and now my eyes are hurting so I am off to bed. see you back here again soon

ok...things are looking a bit clearer !! I will take a deep breath , stop panicking and have a go myself ! I did add the charges up wrongly. But your replies are really helpful and now I think I get it and will go back through the statements and work it out again. Thanks and see you on the hsbc thread soon !

Hi, thank you so much for your replies....and faith in me !!! I have gone through my charges and identified them, although I am not sure what some of the items are, what I mean is some things look like charges but might not be if you know what I mean - so I'll have to go back through and double check. Also I read somewhere that if you do the claim wrong it will be thrown out, and so I'm worried about getting it wrong. I have read about the test case and think I may as well go ahead now and then whenever the the test case is resolved at least I'll be nearer to claiming then. Also if I delay I'll lose out on what I can claim as my account with HSBC is closed. I am claiming from HSBC. The part that is freaking me out is how to add interest? Although I think that I don't have to do this until they refuse to pay and I have to take them to court. Also there are charges for interest on my statements, sometimes two a month. How do I work out what percentage of these is unlawful so that I can include it in my claim?

Hi, I have spent a couple of weeks reading through the site and feel a bit overwhelmed. I have got as far as getting the bank statments and going through them and reckon there is about £5000 in total across two accounts. I now don't feel confident about doing this myself and have contacted a couple of the companies that advertise to claim back charges (don't shout at me !!) . One of them has said that they don't go via the court rout but that they go to the Financial Ombudsman. Has anyone heard of this, I can't find anything on the site about it? Also has anyone had any experience of using these companies? ) I know that this site is about doing it yourself, but I just don't feel capable at the moment ! Any help or comments will be appreciated ! wrangler1