Hi,

My partner and I have separated and there will be no way back from that.

He has a full-time job and I work 25hrs a week and we have an 8yr old son.

Paying the debts was slowly becoming a problem as BNPL were catching up quick and fast

were not paid off in time

were put onto the monthly payments

all monthly payments were made and on time whilst we were together.

That is now not going to happen.

I have a lot of catalogue debt in my name only that I will now not be able to pay the monthly amounts.

I have not defaulted on any accounts yet and I take full responsibility of all the debt and I am not looking for a way to not pay them.

This is what I owe as of today

NEXT £1800 - monthly payment £90

ISME now VERY - £2,000 - monthly payment £75

VERY - £1600 monthly payment £55

WOOLWORTHS now VERY -£2,150 monthly payment £100

SIMPLYBE £1,200 - monthly payment - £50

Total catalogue debt - £8750 total monthly repayments - £370

HALIFAX

£1990 overdraft £47 a month charges - soon to change in Nov to nearly double this when they start the 1p charge for every £7 in the overdraft end of day charges.

Halifax loan £6,000 - monthly repayment £185

Halifax loan £2,000 - monthly repayment £60

Total Halifax debt £9,990 Total monthly repayments £292

I want to send out a letter to all the catalogues and inform them of my financial situation and I can send them a budget sheet and creditors list showing my income and out goings and try and appeal for them to accept a token payment of £10 a month to each of them.

After reading on the www for the last few days I can see I am going to be hitting a lot of brick walls were they will refuse my offer and continue to add charges and interest then sell on to DCA who will then finally take me to court and I will get countless CCJ's and have an even higher debt to pay

- albeit it is very likely the courts will accept my original offer of £10 each per month as my budget sheet will prove this is all I have left over.

As I have said I do accept I owe the debt and they will take forever to pay off at £10 a month but is there anyway I can improve my chances of them freezing interest and charges?

My Halifax loans I can continue to pay and they have less then 4years to go.

My Halifax overdraft is a problem as it is just ongoing and never going to be cleared as I live on the overdraft after my wages get swallowed up by it and the new changes are going to create a bigger problem.

Are Halifax someone who are easy to talk too?

Will they allow me some other way to pay off my overdraft but still allow me to keep my bank account?

I have been with them for 20 years and never ever had any defaults on my account will that help?

I am struggling now on a daily basis and so worried about how to manage all of this debt.

I can't increase my work hours or else would have done.

This forum seems extremely helpful and very good with advice.

What can you advise me to do?

Any help is really appreciated. Thank you in advance.

You need to speak to the CAB or a debt management company. I think your going to get swallowed up and drown if you dont seek help.

Use a free debt management company not a fee paying one.

The good thing is the 1st step to dealing with debt is the realization you need help.

You've already done that!

That's the hardest step done

Thank you for your reply.

I knew the debts were slowly starting to get out of control and this has had an awful emotional impact on me over the past few months.

Not sleeping - waking up numerous times when I do drop off - irritable - feeling very low - slightest things upset me etc

I have already looked at StepChange and put in all my details and they recommend I do a IVA

when I read up on the www about IVA's there seems to be a lot of people who have problems with them.

I don't want to go bankrupt either.

As well as the above I also have a few smaller manageable debts that take me to just over £20,000 so a DRO is also out of the questions.

I was hoping of some way the creditors would accept my payments and I would definitely make them each month.

What would happen if I sent them letters - then started to make the £10 payments each month onto my accounts.

Would they still sell on to DCA's?

Start getting all your ducks in a row too.

Open up a new bank account, with a different banking group, CO-OP or the Post Office.

Inform ALL of your creditors that you are having financial difficulties and see what their response is, usually it is of no help whatsoever!

Catalogues are bottom of the barrel, £1 a month max.

When did you take these agreements out?

Are any of them secured on the property?

I wouldn't be the slightest bit worried about powerless DCA's, they can do NOTHING!

Inform the bank/creditors, and TELL them how much they will be getting each month until your financial circumstances change.

Thank you for your reply. I do appreciate it.

I opened the catalogues online and have had them approx 8 years at a guess.

None are secured on property all unsecured.

My close friend last year was taken to court by Restons after she ignored all their letters regarding a passed on debt from VERY for 2 accounts she had.

She got into financial difficulties and stopped paying and ignored all letters.

It took about 3-4yrs for Restons to have the debt handed to them and they went to court and she got 2 CCJs and has to pay both debts off at £50 a month each - which is what it said on the court papers. ( I saw the papers )

I don't want them doing that to me and the courts saying I have to pay £50 a month on each debt.

I would rather pay off the Halifax as I have so many household direct debits coming out on different dates plus my wages paid in and child benefit.

The overdraft and loans payments are taken straight from my account so I wouldn't be able to tell them how much they will be getting as they just take it.

yep get you money out of Halifax's grasp.

open a parachute account

and get any income paid in there.

I gather that all your DD's come out of the OD account.

so might be worthy to open 2 new accounts one for income on for PRIORITY DD's

then you transfer money into the DD account

though if this were pers i'd cancel all the DD's now

you've gotta realise you'll default so might as well do so now.

then the 6yrsstarts ticking soonest.

don't go down the IVA/DRO or BK route

theres nothing you stop you doing this yourself rather than using a DMP company

its quite easy once you take control yourself.

I wouldn't pers blindly be giving anyone a financial breakdown just yet.

simply write that you are in financial hardship

and for the next xx mts you are dropping their payment to £XX

and will erview that in 6mtstime.

if you look in the library

dx

ps re restons: and CCJ's

well if you don't defend a case you'll lose hands down

restons are easy to defeat.

Thank you dx

I have just in the last few minutes been online and opened up a new basic bank account.

I will be back soon a visitor just arrived sorry but I will be back. I will truly appreciate all your help and advice over the coming weeks/months.

hey no sweat

debt is not a crime

As someone who was once in your position and got out of it, don't despair because at the end of the day it is only money and you can only pay what you have. A few of the creditors might stamp their feet and throw their toys out of the pram, but they can't take what you don't have.

I would echo the advice above. Use your new account for your wages and any benefits you get or other income - I imagine your ex will be paying maintenance? - and only pay out absolute essentials, rent, utilities and council tax, food etc. Get advice if you can if only to make absolutely sure you are getting all the benefits you are entitled to. It also does sometimes make a difference if your creditors are contacted by someone 'official', it shouldn't make any difference but there does seem to be an assumption that you can't be that badly off if you can write letters yourself.

If you can't get help soon, then send a holding letter to all creditors saying you're having problems due to relationship breakdown but hope to be able to come to some arrangement soon, and give yourself some breathing space to decide what to do. For example, if a DRO seems attractive but you're just over the limit, could you use some of the money you save by paying no-one to pay off all or some of one debt to get it below the limit? (DROs are new to me, so check that you wouldn't be doing anything wrong first).

Thank you for taking the time to reply Reallymadwoman.

My partner moved out recently and I have no idea where he is.

It wasn't a nice break up ( if there is such a thing )

until he gets in contact one way or another then I have no idea about if he will be paying towards the upbringing of his son.

I would like to think so but also I never ever saw this coming.

DX100 I have opened a new bank account today which has been accepted and they will post out to me all the account details within 5 working days.

My pay date is this coming week so not enough time to sort anything for my direct debits and Halifax debts this time.

Once I have my new bank account up and running and have arranged my wages and child benefit to go into the new bank and phoned all utilities up to swap direct debits to the new bank then I will write to Halifax once I have myself covered with the new account.

I will get printed off the financial hardship letters to all the catalogues on Monday morning and get them sent out and I will come back to this thread when and if they reply.

I will offer them each £10 a month as I can afford that amount without causing more financial hardship and if they do end up taking me to court then the court will see I have £10 a month to pay each of them I have started all of this by being totally honest with them.

If they refuse - which after reading this forum and www seems highly likely - I will continue to log on to my accounts online and make the £10 a month payments.

When I hear from them I will come and tell you what they have said if that is okay as this is all so new to me

I really have no idea what I am doing so I will follow your advice as I can see you have helped out so many many people on here?

Thank you

Original creditors don't do court

They'll sell the debts on to powerless DCA's

Who are not bailiffs

And are totally powerless

If/when they refuse the £10 and I am more than willing to keep paying it each month and they then sell on my debt to DCA's

will I still have online access to my accounts to make the £10 payments or will they close my account and I won't be able to access it?

How quickly do they sell on the debts to DCAs.

You say the DCA's are powerless

but aren't these the people who will take my debt to court

and force a CCJ then the court tells me I have to pay them so much a month?

Thank you

''IF''

DCA's are powerless, and have zero legal powers,

the ONLY time they EVER obtain a CCJ is ''IF'' the DCA 'owns' the account, and then the debtor 'ignores' them....

you're far to ahead of yourself, and you've been reading their jackanory websites.

not how it work cc...

the OC will write the debt off and reclaim it against their insurance and tax rebate etc

they 'll sell it on to a dca for about 10p=£1

and then its nowt to do with them anymore.

the dca will try and fleece you for the whole balance.

time to get reading

Bazooka Boo my apologies this is all new to me and so many different www pages say so many different things that it is easy to get confused.

I am ahead of myself you are right there and it's because I am so stressed at the moment.

dx100uk

I have probably been reading far too much.

I am so glad I found this forum though and I am thankful for everyone who has taken time to offer advice.

I will get those letters out and then be back when they respond.

I intend to stick with you all the way through this.

Also once I have finances in a better state I will definitely make a donation to this consumer group for helping me through what is coming.

Once again thank you and I will let you know what they say.

Hi

Just an update for you.

I wrote to all 3 very accounts - Isme - Woolworths and Very - NEXT and Simply be.

Very ( all 3 accounts have emailed me today ) NEXT emailed me yesterday. ( Still waiting ot hear from SimplyBe )

Very ( all 3 ) and NEXT have accepted my offer of £10 a month for the next 12 months and froze all interest as long as the monthly payments are kept up. I am absolutely amazed and so relieved! I never thought for a moment they would accept as you read all kinds of horrible things on the www about how they are with customers.

When I wrote to them I printed off a copy of my income and my out goings plus a list of all my creditors and I wrote to them before any payments were missed. Not sure if this helped but they have all agreed to £10 a month and it has lifted a lot of stress at once.

Thank you so so much for the advice I was given here. I appreciate your help so much.

Hey that's great

And so they should help you

Keep an eye on your credit file now

If you see AP or any strange monthly markers other than D

We might want to complain as it should be defaulted

Thank you DX I will do.

I have just made a £5 donation to your forum. I know it's not a lot of money but it's to say thank you from someone who has really appreciated advice when I felt completely lost.

I will be back if I need more advice. If my circumstances do not change over the next 12 months hope they keep the payment arrangement a rolling thing.

Excellent, good news well done.

Hi,

I'm back for more advice on what to do next.

SimplyBe accepted my offer of £10 a month for 6 months ( 6 months is up in Feb )

I arrived home from work today to find a letter from Lowell.

It says that JD Williams sold my SimplyBe account to Lowells on the 29th December 2017.

Total balance £1,196.50

Lowell have been made aware that I am currently making payments towards the account.

Any payments made after the 29/12/17 will be forwarded to Lowell Portfolio Ltd and will be deducted from the balance shown above.

Please contact Lowell Finance on ( phone number ) to discuss the repayments you are currently making and transfer your current repayment to them and it is essential that all future payments an correspondence regarding the account is directed to Lowell Finance Ltd.

What do I do?

I have made all my £10 payments on time to all my creditors and haven't once defaulted.

My situation hasn't changed and I can still only afford £10 a month.

I am more than willing to pay Lowell and I do not want a CCJ if possible from any of the debts

I am now really worried they won't accept £10 a month and go to court

and the court say I have to pay more when I actually can't.

I am shocked at SimpyBe they accepted my offer of payments.

I never missed yet they still sold on my account whilst the agreement was in place.

Where do I go from here please?

I guess the other repayments I am paying will end up with a DCA so need to know what I do when their letters land.

Thank you in advance.

just keep paying the arranged amount direct to lowells

stop panicking..

might pay you to sar JDW and get all the statements

Hi DX

I have been logging onto my SimplyBe account and paying the £10 a month that way.

Do I email Lowell and ask them to continue accepting £10 a month as my circumstances haven't changed and ask for how to make payments to them?

The money owed is correct they froze the account and interest when they agreed on £10 a month.

Thank you for replying

payment details should be on lowells letters

Found it thank you.