Written by John Kruse, one of the leading experts on Bailiff Law, this consumer friendly guide is essential reading for anyone who comes into contact with a bailiff.
The book is easy to understand and clearly explains the rights
a bailiff has, and also what they cannot do when collecting debts and repossessing goods etc.
I opened the letters and I have finally added everything up, see below for the specifics. My total unsecured debt is £73k and my net monthly income is £3k. After taking all the priority payments and being really tight on miscellaneous expenses I have £400 pm. Effectively 0.6% for each creditor and the accounts cleared in a little under 14 years. No wonder I cannot sleep at night and what makes it worse is that my wife has no idea. Think she will leave me and take the kids if she finds out. So all seeming quite grim.
Is there anything I can do initially to delay the collection process or should I just start by trying to get them to accept reduced payments?
Worst of all this is the need to travel with my job and claim the expenses back. Getting overseas with no money and no credit card is major problem as the card I was managing to keep going has, following a payment of £6k, reduced my limit to just a few pounds above the outstanding balance of £175.00. Have seen a pre payment credit card but as always they take a cut on every transaction. If my employer finds out about this situation then I will no doubt get fired!
Any guidance from you guys would be so very much appreciated on where to start or the best strategy.
Can anyone beat me on this figure because if they can perhaps I will feel a little better! Not sure I will sleep any better tonight but at least I have faced the music. As to how did this happen? Well perhaps a story for another time which involves the death of a child and trying to buy happiness again.
for a start dont worry as we have all been there. you are now not alone
if you owe £100 or 1000000, its all the same. you will get the best help and advice.
as you are a new poster a site team menber will be along shortly and give some advice.
I offer help and advice in good faith, based on my knowledge and experience. I am NOT a legal or financial expert. There are many CAG members and site team who are better qualified. Please do not make major decisions based on my advice alone.I do not give advice via P.M's. If anyone can correct my mistakes or improve on my advice, please do.
Hi, and welcome, the first thing to do is to devise a plan of action, once you embark on sorting this out you will find it increasingly more difficult to obtain any sort of credit.
First you need to open a parachute bank account, have all you income paid into it and set up d/ds for all your priority bills/debts but not the unsecured credit. You need to find a bank unconnected to any of your creditors, otherwise you will find your balance has been wiped out to pay one of them.
Contact CCCS they will make a telephone appointment for you where you will you through all your Income & Expenditure, and produce a sheet to send to all your creditors along with a pro-rata offer of payment to each one, and will probably set up a debt management Plan for you, (if not you can do your own) which i think is better.
Look at all your expenditure, is there anything you can cut back on/reduce,
its surprising how much can be saved when you start trying to get cheaper deals on things.
When you do the CCCS thing have all your figures ready, be as acurate as possible, dont leave your self short on living expenses.
I think a prepaid card would be useful re your job etc, i dont know of one but have heard of them, others will give you pointers on this.
Hope this helps CCM
Please note i have no legal training any advice i give comes from my own experience and from what i have learned on this site
Thanks for the advice will look around and see what to do for the best. Am in process of trying to open Step account with Natwest. Also in process of opening an account with Citi Bank but now concerned because of the Egg connection. Surely a bank cannot just take money from an account without any agreement? I know that Lloyds TSB can because this forms part of the credit card agreement.
Yes you will find that its in the bank acc agreement that they can do it, the CCCS will send you a list of banks and which companies have connections to them.
Please note i have no legal training any advice i give comes from my own experience and from what i have learned on this site
hi dash..if your cards are connected to ure bank they can take money from another account you have with them ..its called an offset and they are allowed to do it ..its happened to me ...!!
The co-up do a basic bank account very good you can open it over the phone they send all your details through the post no fuss and you can do all your banking on line aswell brill
We have a Cashplus prepaid credit card and pay £4.95 a month - all transactions are free so we use it to budget with. Don't want this to be an advert but it's really helped us a lot. We 'load' it at the Post Office with our housekeeping money, then it's just like a mastercard - except you're always in control and don't pay interest etc. I think the only time we'd have to pay a fee would be for taking out cash, so we don't ever use it for that.
We will not be intimidated.
'The pen is mightier than the sword'. Petition to Outlaw Debt Sale and Purchase
- can't read/post much as eye strain's v.bad.
VIVA CAG!!!
Nationwide is one of my creditors so best keep clear of them. Indeed they are the ones who despite the account always being paid on time and nearly always the total outstanding balance cleared or very close to it cut my credit limit!
Dashforcash, whatever you do, you must tell your wife. You won't be able to get through this without her support. It won't be easy but it will be a hell of a lot harder to keep all of this to yourself, especially when the 'phone calls and threats of vists start in earnest. The stress of keeping it all to yourself is absolutely terrible and you might well be surprised by her reacton. I felt EXACTLY the same way as you do. Obviously I don't know if your wife will react the same way as mine did but sooner or later she WILL find out - it's better that it comes from you than some sneaky git of a DCA and it's quite possible that she might suspect something already.
It's never quite as bad as it seems. For a kickoff, once you CCA them all, you might well find that quite a lot of this debt is unenforceable. That doesn't mean you don't owe it, but it does at least put you in control of part of it and this would mean that you could park this for a while as you deal with the rest of it.
My case is remarkably similar to yours in many ways, so personally I would give you the following pointers:
Try and get the Lloyds overdrafts sorted out as quickly as you possibly can. They are terrible when it comes to adding charges, particularly if you've gone past any agreed limits and these could escalate way beyond control if you let them. At the very least, try to get them within the agreed limits - and don't let them go a single penny over the top.
Lloyds credit card and loan could be unenforceable, depending on how long ago you took them out. CCA them.
Egg and Cahoot, from my experience will probably be enforceable. Egg are not reasonable, but Cahoot were very reasonable with me, although that's not everyone's experience. I would CCA them, but don't build your hopes up too much.
Halifax might not be, depending on when you took it out. Worth sending a CCA request.
MBNA (Virgin) are terrible to deal with but very often do not produce properly executed agreements. Definitely worth sending the CCA.
RBS have been very reasonable to me (again, that might not be everyone's experience), but it's still worth sending the CCA, just in case.
Don't know about the others - I've had no dealings with them.
Personally, I would also send out SARs to Lloyds, Halifax, Egg and MBNA (as these are the biggest) as there could well be a lot of charges to be reclaimed (although charges against bank accounts are stayed at the moment, it's still worth doing).
The other thing I would advise you to do is start a separate thread for each account - or at least each creditor. That way, people with experience of these insitutions will be more likely to spot your thread and offer the relevant assistance.
Whatever else you do though, please talk to your Wife.
I hope this helps.
Regards and good luck.
Fred
Before you criticise another man you should first walk a mile in his shoes. Then, when you criticise him, you'll be a mile away and he won't have any shoes on.
Don't get me confused with somebody knowledgeable by all those green blobs. I got most of them by making people laugh.
You have definitely come to the right place. This site is full of extremely helpful people who, in many cases, have been in a very similar position to yours.
As people have said before, you need to be the person who tells your wife. She may be angry you have not told her earlier, but it would be worse if you didn't tell her at all and she heard it from a nasty debt collector or by opening a threatening letter.
If you ask on this site, people will come along and help.
Good luck and tell us how it goes.
Emma
Nationwide-A&L-Halifax 1-Student Loans Company-NatWest-Virgin Media-Link-Capital One ALL WON!
Thames Credit -statute barred sent 13/11/08
BCW- prove debt letter- 14/08/08
Apex- CCA 14/08/08
Redcats UK- SAR 14/04/09
Call Serve- CCA 14/08/08
Littlewoods- no CCA letter 03/09/08- Lowells now
Wescot- CCA 19/9/08
Capital One/Debitas- now with Lowells
Any opinions are without prejudice & without liability. All information has been obtained from this site. If you are unsure, please seek professional advice. .
Well the irony is I have headed up B2B credit operations for major global companies. No consumer since 1992. Got depressed and rather than own up to my employer I was suffering from mental illness and stress I changed jobs but with a 50% salary reduction. Thought I would make it up with bonus but that has failed to materialise due to a takeover. So yes the debt was big but I could pay it all back then in 2007.
I have to say that when I was in that B2B role I always helped the few small guys i.e consultants and sole traders. I wrote off a huge amount of debt even though I knew I could have recovered it because I felt sorry for these people. When I did work in the luxury retail sector back in the 80's we used to have an association of West End Retailers. Laws were different in those days and you could exchange information easily. I will never forget how we all shared a client who was in serious trouble. At one meeting we discussed her third suicide attempt. i will never forget that the CM of Harrods said "I wish she would be succesfull so that I don't have to deal with her case anymore." I was appaled and left the retail sector for good after that because he really meant it and others at that meeting agreed with him.
The advice from here will help me no end and I appreciate that. I hope soon to be sharing my experiences with you.
Hi, freds advice is good, however i wouldnt try to take them all on at once, start with the ones who are being the most unreasonable, otherwise it gets confusing with the amount of paperwork to deal with etc, no sense in over stressing yourself if not necessary, as fred says start a new thread for each one, and keep everything to do with each in a separate folder, you will need all this at some point in the future to fight them with.
Please note i have no legal training any advice i give comes from my own experience and from what i have learned on this site
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Originally Posted by dashforcash
