Hi Wondered if anyone could help?? I have been payin of my debt for a LONG time through StepChange, to be precise i've paid off around £11k in 8/9 years and recently have changed to Pay Plan who have advised me to to a debt relief order which i don't really want to do. However my grandad recently passed away and my dad has £4k that he said he is willing to pay off my debt if i can get reduced payments on them all. Using the National Debt Advice Service templates and calculator i have sent letters to all my creditors which are all debt collection agencies to if they will accept a partial payment to settle the debts. I'm trying to get around 10k down to 4k. However upon checking my credit file, Noodle, which used to show all my defaults it no longer has anything on it so i'm wondering where these defaults or debts have gone? Westcott Service Ltd have recently written to me to say they have sent my offer to the Royal Bank of Scotland and is waiting for them to see if they will accept it however i assumed my debt had already been sold to Westcott so would be up to them. They also said my credit file would just be marked as partially settled which doesn't really bother me as i am a student and don't plan on even attempting to get a mortgage for at least 10 years by which time it would have dropped off my file. However if its not already there will the Royal Bank of Scotland add it to my file again. Hope that makes sense??

Hello This is my first post to the forum. I hope you will be able to advise me how to proceed with my dilemma. Once upon a time I owned an Aqua card with a limit of £200. Not long after my circumstances changed dramatically overnight for reasons I won't go into, but I had no option but to go to Stepchange for help. They created a debt management plan for me and I paid my debts off on time with them. Once my time with Stepchange came to an end, I started to received letters from Lowell who had allegedly bought the debt from Aqua at £315. It turns out Aqua had refused the original agreement offered by Stepchange and my debt was growing every month as the amount allocated to Aqua wasn't even enough to cover the interest. In 3 months my partner and I will have a baby, and every penny is a prisoner right now. I feel like I have been duped and consequently I am in more debt than I ever was with Aqua. I asked them for a copy of the original credit agreement and got this back; We are writing to notify you that 25 June, 2014 Progressive Credit Limited has assigned all of its respective rights, title and interest in respect of the above referenced account (including the outstanding balance) to Lowell Portfolio I Ltd, effective 25 June, 2014. The total balance sold was £315.14 as at the sale date 25 June, 2014. Any payments made towards your account after 25 June, 2014, will be forwarded to Lowell Portfolio I Ltd, and will be deducted from the balance shown above. Under the terms of the above assignments, and as defined in the Data Protection Act 1998, Lowell Portfolio I Ltd is now the Data Controller of your Personal Data contained in the records of this account and will not change the purpose for which or the way that your personal details are used. Lowell Portfolio I Ltd is aware that you have been working with a Debt Management Company /Debt Advice Agency to help you manage your financial affairs and are committed to working with them in the future. We would like to take this opportunity to thank you for your commitment to paying your outstanding balance. Any further communications and payments must therefore be addressed to Lowell. Is there any way for me to challenge/fight this debt? Any help would be greatly appreciated, believe me. Thanks in advance CocoLoco

Hi everyone, Ive been paying a DMP with Stepchange for almost 2years now. I was told by someone today that my debts can be challenged and possibly written off. Is this correct and if so, do you think I'd be able to cancel the DMP? Thank you

Hi all, Well after following all the great advise on this forum CCA letters to creditors etc. I am now in the position where I would like to cancelling my DMP with StepChange, going alone ( only 2 creditor have relevant paperwork ). Ive had a look, but I can't find any template for termination of DMP any help would be great as I'm no letter writer. Do I just request termination or do I have to give reasons etc. Many thanks Helen

Old CCCS now Stepchange have used them since 2009 and they have been OK, but for sure they will not help to challenge any debts. Have claimed back all PPI and charges, now paying 5 creditors £5 a month each. I have asked the question, have they attempted to suggest that this small amount cannot be worth their while collecting as it must cost each creditor or DCA more to administer, example LINK send a receipt each month for £5 through the post, has anybody had any success with getting these debts written off ?

Hello. Im thinking of asking stepchange to setup and manage a DMP for me. from experience are these good people to be dealing with? , do they have decent clout in the market to help keep the creditors of my back?

I've had a Barclaycard for a little over a year now but more recently came to the realisation that our household credit was out of control and contacted stepchange. I set up a DMP through them and most of my creditors have played fair, accepting the reasonable offering and I've heard little from them since. Barclaycard however are noisy little cherubs. The first payment to them (although actually above the minimum payment due to an interest free period) was a day later than the statement date, so I'm consistently 'a month behind'. They're rewarding me with several phone calls a day, most days (although there's sometimes a quiet week somewhere in the month). My phone, my home phone, my work phone, my wife's phone.... not sure where they got all the numbers but it's constant. CCCS have suggested we leave them be and just wait for them to pass it off to their debt collections for interest and charges to stop, but in the meantime the balance is going in the wrong direction with all the charges they're putting on and the "minimum payment" (as meaningless as that is in a DMP) is now four times the amount they're getting each month (cue another bombardment of telephone calls). Any suggestions on how I should move forward and get them to realise they won't receive more than their fair share? I should probably add I'm generally poor at dealing with things over the phone.

I finally faced up to my huge debt problem and went through the CCCS to try and get life back on track. A repayment plan was made Everything's been great so far, apart from the Halifax who only let you have 6 months before they default you and send to DCA. So, I have now have defaults (through the Halifax) which I would love to get removed from my credit file. Having sent signed CCA requests to each of the credit card companies, so far, they've sent agreements just printed out (no signature) or application forms. They say that they don't have to send true copies with signatures on at all as per the act. My question is, as they don't seem to be able to provide signed ccas, how do I get rid of them? Did i just stop paying them? I don't want to take the easy way out, but life (as I'm sure you all know!) has been so stressful with these people and if something's been done wrong, it should be put right! Any help would be much appreciated and sorry if this has been done incorrectly but I can't start a new thread

My wife and I have been on a Stepchange DMP for 4 years - we had over 30 creditors to begin with but now have around 20 and have paid off about 70% of what we owed. One of the remaining creditors - Cahoot - has recently contacted us to say that they are writing off the amount owing (which is £1579) because they have failed to provide us with any statements since the start of the DMP. Looking at the other creditors there are 2 more on there who don't send us any statements either. Is it worth raising this as a complaint with them? If so what wording should we use? They have both frozen all interest and charges so we don't really want to upset them! Additionally my wife received a CCJ at the same time as we set up the DMP and we agreed with the creditor to pay £116 a month on a £9k judgement. They then sold this to Investec who we have paid via standing order ever since. They never ever send us a written statement and rather strangely no CCJ shows up on my wife's Noodle or Experian accounts - there definitely is one, we have a copy of it. Does anyone know if they have to supply a written statement of account for a CCJ?

Hi guys, I have a few debts i want to put into DMP however not all my debts as some debts i will be able to sustain as long as i can get my short terms into a DMP (such as 3 payday loans and 2 credit cards totalling £1800 (approx) ), firstly is it possible to select which debts you put into DMP? Secondly what are good DMP companies to turn too? I tried doing a review search but clearly alot of fake reviews for companies. I have tried stepchange but to be honest they made my situation worst, dont know if i just got a bad advisor or what, but everything he told me to do back fired and its not helped, CAB well they aren't helpful either. They wanted me to come in for an appointment to discuss my debts during working hours instead of just doing it over the phone and to be honest considering i started a new job to help with this situation i dont want to be asking for 3 hours pardon in my first 3 weeks, wouldn't be good at this company. Any advice would be much appreciated guys. Cheers:-)

Hi all, Glad to be here. I'm a long time browser and a new user. This forum has gave me great ideas in the past and I have helped my friends by reading advice on here. Now for my story. I have been with Kensington Finance for over 5 years. I was aware of free ones but thought that it was too much hassle as my debts were surrounding me. I was not thinking clearly and wanted a quick way out. In fact, I got referred to them by someone I knew. He said that they are good, no hassles blah, blah blah. Like a naive person, I arranged a DMP with them. They put me on a DMP on £90 a month (£49 paid to 3 creditors and £41 for their 'management' fees). I agreed and forgot about them. Currently I don't work. Ironically I'm studying to become an accountant. lol. Before I was working with computers and did a degree in Multimedia systems. Just last week, I got a wake up call from one DMP company. Someone called me up and managed to obtain my credit history. She told me that I have £8500 debt (with 3 creditors), which will take me about 12 years to pay off on my current plan, and was trying to sell me an IVA. I simply told her that I'm not working and therefore I probably won't be eligible. I simply put the phone down. I wanted to check how much debt I had left. Originally I had just under £11,000 debt and it doesn't take long to work out that only £2,500 has been paid off so far. Since that time I have paid Kensington Finance £2460 (£41 x 12 months x 5 years) in management fees which could have easily been paid towards the debts if I went for the free one. After that call, I called up StepChange and decided to go with them. They phoned me on Monday 02 June and set up a DMP with me. They worked out that £102 a month is reasonable for me and I should be debt free in 6 years 4 months, if my situation don't change. Today I phoned up Kensington Finance to cancel and explained my reasons why. They said that we will only charge you £10 in management fees. They also said that changing the DMP over to StepChange might cause bother to creditors and they might hassle you again so stick with us. Under the new plan it will take you 6 years 9 months to be debt free in my current situation. So what I want to know is that if any body had problems changing over? Will it cause problems with the creditors and for me? Should I stick with Kensington Finance as they have my details or send the paperwork back to Stepchange to get the DMP started? Sorry for long post. Any other advise gladly welcomed.

I set up a dmp with Stepchange recently for a debt i have with Barclays which is around £3000. Stepchange sent me a text message as well as emails and paperwork confirming the dmt plan is set up and the first payment is due next week. However on Saturday 27th Feb Barclays sent me a letter in the post saying We regret that we have not been contacted by this agency (Stepchange) to confirm they are dealing with your finances and we cannot hold collections action against this accout any longer. Today i contacted Stepchange to ask them about the letter Barclays sent and Stepchange say that as far as they are concerned the dmp is set up and the first payment is due the beginning of next week. Barclays have also today sent me another letter asking me to return my Debit Card and Chequebook with them or they will send someone round to collect them. Where do i go from here?

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

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

I am after some advice. Really stressing me out now!! Basically I entered a DMP on 09/2009. I have currently paid £5,527 to date with a further £8,488 to pay but I am increasing payments to £510 per month so this will be clear by mid 2014. I have been looking at me credit file with experian and noticed the following default dates.... Lloyds TSB (17.02.2012) Also says Arrangement start date was 01/12/2009 and end date was 01/06/2012. Surely I should have defaulted before this date as technically, when I entered the DMP I broke my original agreement. Lloyds TSB (10.02.2011) Also says Arrangement start date was 01/12/2009 and end date was 01/02/2011. Surely I should have defaulted before this date as technically, when I entered the DMP I broke my original agreement. HFC Bank (28/06/2010) No arrangement to pay details on credit file however, this default looks fair enough to me as it was 6 months after my DMP started. HFC Bank (31/08/2010) Also says Arrangement start date was 01/03/2010 and end date was 01/08/2010. Surely I should have defaulted before this date as technically, when I entered the DMP I broke my original agreement. HFC Bank (31/08/2010) Also says Partial Settlement was 01/07/2011. This was actually paid in full as I rang them and they advised me that the ammount I paid is the ammount I actually owed them. Halifax (07/05/2010) This default looks fair enough to me again as it was within 6 months of my DMP starting. No queries for this one. However, I would say that as this was an overdraft this would have been made up purely of late peymant charges? Anything I can do? Halifax (22/08/2011) Also says Arrangement start date was 01/12/2009 and end date was 01/02/2011. Surely I should have defaulted before this date as technically, when I entered the DMP I broke my original agreement. Lloyds TSB (29/03/2012) Also says Arrangement start date was 01/10/2011 and end date was 01/01/2012. Surely I should have defaulted before this date as technically, when I entered the DMP I broke my original agreement. This is the one thats peeing me off the most!! Any advice as to what I can do and do I have a case on any of the above? Also, Seeing as though a few of them will be dropping off in 2-4 years, is is actually worth paying these debts off by mid 2014? Wouldn't I be better dragging it out over the next 4 years or so? If I claimed back PPI would they come off my Lloyds TSB balances as they would be the company I would be claiming against? Thanks in advance for any help that is given to me, I am pulling my hair out!!

Hi I set up a plan with Step Change (formerly CCCS) and Minicredit is not happy. Apparently they don't accept DMP's or something like that, but what is more strange is that I recieved a call from Step Change saying that I should contact them to tell them to send the debt to a third party so Step Change can deal with the debt. (DCA or something). I don't know.. it doesn't makes sense to my, this is the email I received from them, what should I do please? Thanks! "Microcredit Ltd does not deal with debt management agencies directly due to the Loan Agreement and the payment methods we have to accept under it. All Customers have to make payments with a debit card according to the Loan Agreement and that is something the debt management agencies usually refuse to do. If You would like a Debt management company to act on Your behalf they would still need to honour the Loan agreement You have signed with our company. The debt management plans also last over 120 days from the due date so that the default on the credit reference cannot be avoided. When the loan is defaulted the account will immediately be forwarded to our Debt recovery and Legal action partner. They will then decide whether a payment arrangement can be set up with You if the payment offer is reasonable or start Legal action to have the Court order set on the payments. You are able to choose between 3 payment options: settlement amount paid in full immediately, settlement plan and payment plan. The settlement amount has to cover the loan principal amount, interest 1% of the principal per day and overdue penalties of £80, the debit attempt fees are decreased depending on when You notify us regarding the financial difficulties. The settlement payment can be made with a one-off payment with interest added up to the date we receive the payment. You may also clear the settlement payment by partly payments latest by the 120th day overdue if You wish to avoid the default status on the credit reference. The interest calculation will end with the date of the last payment. The settlement amount with default date interest can be repaid over a longer period through our debt recovery partner with a payment plan but this option will include a default on the credit reference. Microcredit Ltd has provided the Customers, who wish to apply for the payment plan, the possibility to fill in the hardship form on the online account. Many Customers do not wish to set up a long term payment plan with our debt recovery partners as they are able to settle the account within 4 months from the due date. Please bear in mind that Microcredit Ltd is not able to stop the automated debit attempts so if You have the possibility then cancel the card that is registered in the system."