Hi all, I've been reading a ton of info on the web and pieced together some info, but I'm really confused and could do with some help with quite a complex problem. Seen some really aggressive responses on other sites, but hoping you lot can help! I got into financial difficulty about 6 years ago (redundancy, ill health) and immediately tackled the situation head on by going to PayPlan and arranging a DMP which I have been in for the duration. I'm clawing my way back to normality and I'm in a position now where I can start to settle. I've been through my credit report and my first problem is that I'm having real difficulty reconciling the outstanding balances and the DMC's with what's listed on my PayPlan report. Now I'd never really worried about this until recently when I discovered they'd not distributed my payment one month through my creditors and subsequent investigation showed they'd also not distributed the increase in payment from my annual review. I now don't know whether to trust them and whether to start managing this myself. I don't even know where to start. My second issue is with Default notices. I've read lots of conflicting reports on these. Essentially I'd like to work toward cleaning up my file so I'm in a position to get a mortgage. I've been doing this for the last 5/6 years on the understanding that Defaults drop from the credit file 6 years after they are issued. I've read some reports saying that the 6 year clock restarts at the point you settle though - is this true? Also, at the time I got into trouble, I had 6 accounts which I believed all Defaulted at the same time. Checking my file today, it appears 2 have dropped from my file completely, one appears as "Closed" and 2 are still "Open" with balances. Of the 2 "Open" Defaults, one looks likely to drop from the file in June this year (which is fine), but the other, which stupidly is also the smallest amount of all of them doesn't drop until December 2016 as the Default date is listed as December 2010. My question on this is that the account clearly shows I was in serious trouble and making significantly reduced payments for 2 years prior to the default being issued. I don't think I can get the Default removed, but do I have a case for having the Default date moved to the point where I believe I'd actually defaulted on the terms of the agreement? In all of this, I've paid throughout and my intention is to pay all of the money back - unless that's a stupid idea. I didn't even realise you COULD pay a lower amount to DMC's. Apologies in advance for the giant post - I realise a lot of this is covered elsewhere, but I just don't know where to start with it all. JJ

Hi, I have recently separated from my partner and would like to remove him from the mortgage, I have been advised that I will need to go through a re-mortgage to take this on myself. I am currently on a DMP and am worried that they will not let me re-mortgage, I don't want to borrow any additional monies and my ex partner does not want anything, I have been paying the mortgage since May 2013 with no contribution from my ex. If the mortgage company say no, what are my options.

Hello, I am almost in the position to start approaching my creditors to give Full and Final settlement offers however I would like a bit of advice first. I am looking to get a mortgage within the next 2 years and want to get myself in the best position possible to apply. I will have money available from family to clear the debts however the majority will come from my local credit union, I have already discussed this with them. I am currently on a DMP with StepChange and one of my creditors has only just defaulted my account so the 6 year clock has only just started ticking.... I have read on this forum that its unlikely I will ever be able to have the defaults removed with the CRA's however I am going to try. Has anybody ever had defaults removed as part of F&F settlement negotiations? I have seen some F&F settlement letters on this forum with default removal as one of the conditions. I am aware that a settled default is not much better in the eyes of mortgage lenders than an unsettled default. Also, I am not sure if I should use Step Change's free F&F settlement service or go alone using templates here. Any advice is greatly appreciated. Many Thanks

Hi, This is a strange one, I'm posting here to see if a common problem. About 6 months ago Pay Plan messed up my DMP by increasing payments to my creditors without contacting me. One creditors balance was cleared and PayPlan created a new payment plan without contacting me. It turned into a gigantic mess so I sent a formal letter to Pay plan to cancel the DMP and started to self administer my DMP, as well as complaining about their mess up. Got an email response, very poor response, and decided to get new SAR details to confirm the facts before making a formal complaint to them. DSAR sent, no response. Searched through my files. When I sar'd them in 2012, same thing, I only got a response when I send LBA. Last week I sent a SAR chase up letter, they claim not to have received the original letter, but will oblige with the SAR this coming week. I just though their DSAR department was incompetant, but then I got the shock of my life. I opened a CC statement to find a pay link payment on there, why? My PayPlan DMP is closed. Looked into my account, they have split the £10 fee for the SAR amongst my creditors! The SAR was a formal letter, clearly detailing I wanted full disclosure etc, especially telephone notes (as they were also very naughty last year and lied to me!). The best bit.......the have paid several creditors whose balance was 0! Sheer incompetence. Are play Plan covered by FOS? Am I entitled to any compensation, as I now have to spend time contacting quite a few creditors (again) to sort this mess out. Last time I had to renegotiate with 9 creditors to set up DMP myself, with many of them several signed for letters, requiring new i&e's etc, so the costs have been mounting up. Not what I need in the slightest. Any advice would be welcome CS

To cut a long story short - I got into financial difficulty in 2009. Most of my creditors defaulted me by 2010. Ok, I accept the defaults, I deserve it. However, Lloyds kept accepting my DMP payments until 2012 before defaulting me. In my opinion they have punished me for trying to pay my debts off when in reality, I would have been better ignoring them for 6 months and defaulting. Are they allowed to do this as the defaults would now be nearly 4 years old as opposed to 2 years old. I thought banks were only supposed to accept DMP payments for a short period before defaulting you? 2 years seems a bit of a **** take in my eyes? Thoughts?

Hi I have been in a debt management plan for two years. I have been able to maintain payments until four months ago when due to change in circumstances (long term sick and Wife out of work) have only been paying a token payment of £1.00 to my creditors a month. It is a non-fee paying company. Most of the creditors have sold the debts on to debt collection agencies. Couple of questions please if anyone can help:- I have never asked for proof that these debts are enforceable (is it a CCA I request). Two of the creditors are still adding ridiculous charges/interest despite being aware of the situation. With these charges I am not making any headway at all. Thanking you in advance for any advice you can give. pgtips

The FCA will assume responsibility for all debt management companies from 1 April 2014 and hold these fee paying companies to account for any failings. I for one will see how many fee paying companies remain trading. These represent the scourge of vulnerable consumers caught up in the debt spiral.

Hi everyone I'm a newbie to this site having just stumbled across it. Wow I'm overwhelmed by the information so I thought it easier to ask for advice. Firstly I'm on a DMP with Stepchange and have been paying it religiously for the last 6 years. Original debt £40647.21, in the last 6 years I have paid £17271.00, balance = £23376.21 I want to clear this debt quicker, the DMP finishes in 2020 another 6 years. I work fulltime but don't have any savings, should I start to pick off the debts 1 by 1 and offer full and final settlements? What is CCA that people are talking about? I'm a single mum with 1 dependent and work full time. My DMP payments are currently £300 per month but have previously been as high as £400. I can't bear the thought of another 6 years of a DMP. Please help!

Hi there We have a debt with Scottish Power of £1900 which is an outstanding balance for utilities for a failed business premises we had. This debt is in our DMP. After several months of being in constant contact with SP they have finally recognised that this account is now closed as the business no longer exists. They agreed to us including them in our DMP and also agreed to the monthly payments. However, I have this morning received another bill which has now added £42 as a Debt Advisory Charge !! Has anyone else had this ? I need to write to them, can anyone advise what I should say in the letter. Many thanks

Hi I started a DMP with the CCCS 3 years ago when I had 21k of debt to pay off. I still have about 11k left so about 4 years to go until I am debt free. I've looked through the forums etc but I was just wondering if anyone had any ideas if I could pay this back sooner, reduce my debts, IVA etc? I am paying £274 a month with I can just about manage. I am desperate to get this debt paid off asap but cannot afford more then £274 a month. My debts are from 3 credit cards, 2 store cards, 2 overdrafts and a loan. Also one question I have is regarding a lloyds overdraft I had about 4 years ago. I had their top current account at the time and was able to apply to extend my overdraft online which was an instant decision. I keep doing this as I was always short of cash and somehow over a period of about 2 years I managed to get my overdraft limit up to......£6920, yes, £6920!!! How did they let me do this? is was an apprentice at the time so was earing between £11k-£18k at the time and renting a flat!! If anyone has any advice or ideas I would very much appreciate it. Thanks for your time reading this. Mike

Hi - I hope someone can help: thanks in advance. I'm a year into a DMP now, but am having trouble with one of my creditors. All the others froze interest when the DMP started, apart from my biggest creditor, who gave me a personal loan in 2009. The creditor says that because all the interest was "front-loaded" - charged and added on to the balance right at the start - they cannot do anything to help my situation. So my annual statement from them shows me making a reduced DMP payment each month, while the effective interest rate for each month remains almost double that. I wondered if anyone else has experience of this? I asked the creditor to look at cancelling/refunding the interest covering the time period since my DMP began - in other words, I asked for the same help that my other creditors have offered. But they just said no. All the interest was added to the total in month one of the 86 month loan, a nd that's the way it stays... Is that right? Thanks very much for any advice!

Hi Guys, I've been using PayPlan for close to two years now to steadily get myself out of Debt and free of the creditors nooses I put around my own neck. My balance is presently in the region of £1000 left to pay off, but in recent months PayPlan seem to be increasingly frustrating to work with. Case in point - One of my creditors Oakam, have now sent the wrong balance three times for my account, the first time this led to me spending over an hour jumping through hoops only to find that my balance and what I owed were not the same thing. This happened again in October and after banging of fingers in draws so to speak once, I managed to get the answer again, balance was what was loaned, amount left to pay was something else. It hasn't helped that for some reason at the start of my DMP with PayPlan they changed the reference number for my debt with Oakam to another for three months and never twigged this was an issue until I checked into it myself. Today I've received the same message again, no checking of previous issues with this creditor or how their letters are badly formatted, resulting in hair pulling on my behalf. PayPlan I know is in the pocket of the credit industry to get back what I owe, I've no issue with repaying it all back to them because I knowingly took the money and promised to repay it. But now I seriously wonder if I should find an alternative to them or go it alone, what would you guys advise. I've already gone for the PPI on three of my creditors and won back some, should I SAR all of them and go after my unfair bank charges? Thank you in advance for any advise rendered. Edit - It would also seem using noodle that Oakam claim I have a balance of £8k rather than the £120.76 I have with them. That is very, very worrying, I've opened a dispute about it.

Have five creditors.. Barclays, NRAM and three that appear to have been sold on from the original credit card company... now with Direct Legal & Collections, London Scottish Finance Ltd and Paragon Personal Finance Ltd. I have no problem paying what I owe (e.g. to Barclays) but can only assume these chancers have bought the debt for next to nothing... I certainly do have a problem paying them. Can I challenge them as to the validity of the loan/their involvement? Read about a CCA request, is that appropriate? They have all frozen interest so I am a little wary of stirring it up but on the other hand.... Main objective is to obv be debt free but I want to clean up the credit history too

Basicallly: Owe £777 to WDA. Emailed about 5 days before the repayment date saying that I was going to unable to repay full amount, sent I & E form and waited a day. Nothing. So resent email and waited a day and again nothing. It was on day of repayment so had cancelled the DD and cancelled card and CCA. Sent £50 direct to their bank, emailed them saying I had done so and will be sending this amount every month (this was amount I had offered in repayment). Had one standard email saying missed payment but nothing else - no phone calls or emails. Should I be worried or should I leave it? Not willing to call. Many thanks Swanleyboy

help, I've got an overdraft with Natwest bank, we were ok paying it back slowly however my wife's hours reduced drastically at work and I'm self employed, work dropped to nothing over the past couple of years and put us in a situation, we tried to struggle on paying one bill leaving another situation until it came to a head and we contacted a specialist debt management firm, they took all of our details, the debts and sorted it out pretty much, sadly when comes to this it seems Natwest stick their head in the sand and ignore any/all contact from the DMF! Now we've had a letter from Triton DCA, we duly sent it to the firm dealing with it as they hold all our records, they have responded however Triton have ignored this and now a letter has arrived today stating they've advised Natwest to go to county court, all the things to happen, etc etc, I feel it's a threatening letter to say the least but it's quite simple, I can't pay with what I don't have, we went through all our income/outgoings with the DMF and we give them every penny we can do monthly to try to sort things out, we had two catalogues, Natwest bank and CC and a small OD with Barclays (whom are also ignoring contact), my wife had a Barclaycard. is this a bank thing, the two catalogues have instantly agreed to payments as did Barclaycard instantly but Natwest with the OD and CC are ignoring any contact from the DMF and I feel have passed it on to threatening DCA when they've got nowhere themselves, we've sent ALL letters to the DMF and they have copies of the letters sent to Natwest/Triton! I want to send a simple letter, stating simply 'this matter is in the hands of X, please contact them for further details on the matter' kind of thing, send it recorded so I can prove, if it ends up in court that we and indeed our DMF have attempted to sort this out with them before a CC happens! My credit rating is shot anyway thanks to going into a DMP so that's not particularly an issue for me, a CCJ would be discharged over time I know if it came to it, I've accepted that, long term anyway will do me good to be uneligible for credit, it's more the threatening tone throughout the whole letter and specifically their lies that they have had NO contact when they have that's getting to me! Our DMF has told us before that if we feel we wish to that we can send a simple letter stating we are registered with a DMF whom are dealing with all our financial circumstances and debts but I'm not good with written word really so was wondering if anyone has a template to use that says back off, you have had contact, we are registered with a DMF whom you are ignoring, all this information will be brought to court should it go that far, I'm not ignoring the debt, I am willing to pay it when I can, I accept it's my debt and it's to pay but I thought by going with a DMF whom have sent them the nomimal £1 a month until they sort thing that they would accept knowing if we've gone to a DMF we've obviously not got the cash to hand!

Hi All, I am currently on a DMP wuth Stepchange and all but one creditor (CFO) have stopped contacting me. As it stands I owe CFO £512, on my DMP statement 3 payments have cleared and been sent to them. A couple of months into my DMP I recieved a text message from CFO saying "Good Morning, as you have failed to honor your agreement with CFO, all your numbers have been uploaded to be called re arrange a payment" I called them up and explained that I was on a DMP and they told me they had not recieved any literature. I called Stepchange and they sent out another letter. Two days later I received the following text: "Your payment plan has now failed call us on...to avoid further interest" I called them again and told them that I had already spoken to someone. Three weeks later I received this text: "You have left us no alternative but to escalate our collections. You will be called on both your home and work numbers". I contacted stepchange and they told me that all the payments made to CFO had been cleared and received their end but whenever I tell them this they are adamant no payments have been made. Any thoughts on my next plan of action? Thanks S

Hi there We are in a DMP with Payplan and are really trying our best to get on top of things. However, I have just checked our Lloyds bank statement to see what the balance now is and see that they are charging an Overdraft fee and Overdraft interest which is over and above what we are paying through the DMP. The balance is therefore more than it was when we started. I suppose they have a right to make these charges but is it worth my while writing to Lloyds and asking them to stop. If so, does anyone have any ideas of what to say. Many thanks

I have been with Payplan for around 7 years and have cca all of those whom I don't recoginise as the original creditors. Not surprising no one has complied which means three quarters of them are non-compliant. I thought of asking payplan to stop paying them but don't have much confidence in them doing it with out a lot of hassle so I am thinking of cancelling the dmp and dealing with the legit creditors myself. Any thoughts anyone?

Hi - I am a first time poster here. Hope someone can help. I've been on a DMP for nine years for all my debts. I've never missed a payment. 3 weeks ago received a letter from one of the DCAs saying because it would take so long so be repaid they were initiating court action. The letter went on to say they had no intention of forcing the sale of my (jointly owned) property, nor was it a way to make me pay more than I could afford but "they wanted security". (I don't believe them) Last week the court papers arrived. (along with a further £300 of charges) I phoned them and they said if I increased my payments tenfold they would still go for a CCJ but not a charging order. I think its unreasonable because I can't afford to pay more, plus I have show myself to be willing to pay for the past nine years and I want to contest what they are doing. However, there is not a box on the court form which is suitable. Am I contesting the court's jurisdiction, or am I contesting the amount? As further info, the debt is no longer on my credit file. And a final question, can unsecured debt be turned in to secured debt? Has anyone got any ideas on how I should proceed? Thanks

Now I'm on a roll I'm thinking about challenging Eurodebt/Pentagon about their shoddy management of our account with them. We signed up with them way back in the early noughties and over the years have paid a considerable amount of money to them (8-10k is my estimate). Thing is, having found CAG and gone very simply down the CCA route I am furious that they have just carried on taking the money from us and not given us best advice (ie to send CCAs or do it on our behalf). Clearly there would have been no benefit to them, but still shoddy practice and possibly in breach of all kinds of FSA guidelines. I'm thinking we should be due some fees back. Would anyone out there be willing to help me draft an appropriate letter please ? Many thanks in anticipation TG

Hi, I am new to this so please bare with me if this is the wrong place to post. I am looking at a debt problem on behalf of my girlfriend who needed a hand. Upon looking at it I can see that she is using Kensington Finance and one of their debt management plans. Upon review I can see that they are charging a huge fee each month which obviously will slow down the process of paying off the debt. I wondered what options were available to me/her. I would ideally like to pay as little (if anything). I have noticed some places like Payplan or CCCS don't charge but really am an amateur here. Can someone give me some advice with regards to the fees? Thanks a lot!

Hello, I had a loan with Santander which I included on a debt management plan I entered nearly a year ago now. Several months ago I had a statement through from Santander showing that I no longer owe anything and the debt has been written off. I presumed that my debt had been sold, after phoning them up this was confirmed. However to date I have not heard anything from Santander or any internal/external DCA. It clearly stated on the statement that the debt has been written off and there was no mention of a collection agency managing the debt going forward. I am no longer making any payments as part of my DMP as Stepchange have removed the debt. How long does it take for a debt to be sold or transferred? From what I have seen before this is usually pretty quick? I would like to know if I still owe the money so I can continue paying it back or make a F&F offer. Any advice as always is greatly appreciated! Cheers

Hello all, This is my first post and I have been reading other threads but I am still not quite sure what to do and need some help and advice please! I have a few debts which total approx £16k and until now I have been managing it by myself but after several things happening over the last year we have had to reduce payments and I have had to start speaking to StepChange. They have come up with either a DMP or IVA but we are currently thinking against IVA. I am contemplating DMP or just trying to go it alone with one of their letter templates and do not know which option is best!! I am not fussed about my credit rating as to me it is probably shot already and to be honest I would rather stay as far away from credit cards or loans etc as possible - for the foreseeable future anyway! I am more concerned with how it is paid in a DMP - ie say our circumstances change then am I able to pay off more without it backfiring on me? say one month we are an extra £10 better off or £100 better off can I pay it to the creditors without having a comeback or am I better off going it alone and doing things on my terms with the creditors so that I can specify to them that if I have extra cash I can pay more off?? I am also worried about how the interest charges will be - I do not know if all of my creditors will freeze their charges - if anyone can help out with that question it would be very much appreciated!! I dont know what other peoples experiences have been with any of the following... my creditors are: Sainsburys (loan) Barclaycard (credit card) Santander (credit card) Tesco Bank (credit card) For the sake of freezing interest is it more recommended that I go for a DMP with StepChange or go it alone?? I have no idea and any views are very welcome and very much appreciated!!! Thank you all in advance

Hi, I don’t ever remember joining CAG but stumbled upon it again recently – wish I’d known about it years ago, the information and support I’ve seen here are amazing. I’m looking for some debt and DMP help, and would really appreciate people’s ideas and advice on my position. It’s grown pretty long but wanted to get down everything, so to anyone who reads it all a BIG THANKS! I have had a DMP since 2007 and would like to get these debts cleared off because they’re such a drain, but haven’t been able to contribute that much so the total is still big. I did try for an IVA originally, but that was rejected in June 2007, if it had gone ahead I’d be sorted by now. These are the details: 1. Abbey Loan, started in September 2006, now with Apex £25,000 outstanding. 2. MBNA Credit Card, opened in 1999, now with Link Financial £13,500 outstanding. 3. Co-op Credit Card, opened in 1989, now with Frederickson £10,200 outstanding. 4. HFC Loan, started in September 2004 still with them £3,800 outstanding. 5. Unsecured loan with NRAM, about £13,000 outstanding. Our mortgage was taken out in 2006 with Northern Rock, now with NRAM, and includes this unsecured part. They’ve stopped the interest on this part, but I’ve tried to keep up the full payments separate from the DMP because I was worried about its association with our mortgage. The Co-op CC has now come off my credit report, the others are due to by about May 2014, (except NRAM which is not listed as defaulted but a month in arrears) so that’s starting to improve. I haven’t paid for PPI on any of them. Here are a few questions. A. Abbey gave us a £25,000 loan but applied all of the interest right at the start instead of on an annual basis, making the initial balance £31685. So even though I’d paid £2,400 the default amount was £29,038. I haven’t seen this way of applying the interest before and if it had been applied monthly or annually I’d have defaulted on less. Is there anything I can do about this, like claim back interest that applied after the default? They didn’t apply any other charges. B. Is there any possibility of reclaiming any interest (on purchases) that is applied before the creditors accept a repayment offer and freeze interest? I’m not exactly sure when that officially happened, but the Co-op CC appears to have stopped after November 2007 and MBNA CC after December 2007. However the IVA application for example was in June 2007 and between then and November there was thousands in interest on the two CCs. Is there any possibility of reclaiming any of that extra interest? C. Because I stopped making minimum payments MBNA and Co-op started charging late fees at £12 per month and then when the balance went over limit due to the accruing interest, overlimit fees of £12 per month started. Total fees are about £100 each. Am I right in thinking it may be possible to get these refunded? (Although they are drops in the ocean!) D. I’ve read of people applying to see the original, signed CA. Some of mine were taken out a long time ago so they may not be able to produce the CA. Have I anything to lose by requesting them and if they can’t what does that mean for me? E. Many of these questions are a bit hopeful really, it’s just that I haven’t been able to save anything for a full and final payment and I worked out it would take another 27 years to repay all of these at the current rate! So really the main thing is any advice/ideas on anything I can do to avoid being saddled with these debts forever? Thank you for reading all this. It’s a lot, but I wanted to get all the important stuff in together. Many, many thanks in advance for your time and advice. J

I am new to this site so apologies if I have posted to the wrong thread. I really need some advice as to where to go from here. I had around £60,000 in debts on credit cards and loans, which I have been paying off through a DMP with CCCS for the past 6 years. during this period. I had to leave my job due to distance and hours (worked in London, lived in Kent but initially reduced my hours to enable me get back in time to pick children up from after school, but the benefit people wouldn't cover my childcare expenses because the hours worked were under the threshold to qualify). My partner works and covers the bills and mortgage payments each month. we both claim working tax credit but as this is a joint claim, I put the figure of the whole claim as my income on my DMP. They (CCCS) asked me to include my partner's financial details on the claim, but I refused as the debts were incurred before I met him so debts are solely in my name and he does not want to be a part of it. I have tried explaining to CCCS that I am just on benefits and it is just a struggle to continue with the current arrangement but they have implied that the only option is bankruptcy. I have paid around £25,000 to date and have about £35,000 left. It is estimated that I probably will still be paying this off for the next 20 years. The mortgage is in my partners name and I don't have any assets. The company that my hubby works for are due to relocate in a couple of months meaning that he will soon be out of a job although he is actively looking for work. I really don't know what to do, any advice will be appreciated. Thanks