Awesome advice all.!! many thanks. total sucess using the OFT vs MBNA thing, first wrote complaint on santander website siting the OFT vs MBNA and the fact i was being ignored whilst trying to make offers. got called two days later (today) bank accepted all my offers. all sorted now , here is an update for you, viking debt collection is 100% santander as i rang them two days ago, and the phone was answered like this. Hello santand....er....viking becky speaking. anyway just to say a big thanks as your advice worked. all good and managable at last. thanks. Pete

Ok, had a few good replies from this site in the past so here goes. in short, am in debt to the tune of 23k. I have been making payments without issues on everything upto sept 2010. I make the mistake of borrowing from payday load company (swift sterling) to help cover with car repairs, in oct i got hit with massive bills from swift and made the mistake of using another payday loan company to bail out of the problem. ok now (stupid i hear you say, and yes i know) anyway i did it and have to live with it. now i originally approached my bank santander and asked them to help me raise the money by way of extending my loan, they said no, and no to extend od, and to to everything else i had asked for help with. now given i had never missed any payments i was quite annoyed. I raised a complaint with the bank which is still todate being looked at (they keep writing to me saying it will take another 4 weeks to provide an answer) now at this point i started to miss repayments of the full ammounts, i kept up with goodwill payments and i wrote to all my creditors with a full expenditure sheet and explaining the problem caused by using payday loan companies. now since sept i have been continuing like this making token payments to all creditors and continually writing to them keeping them in the loop. i have received every type of default notice you can think of and have reached the point where the majority of creditors have accepted my terms of reduced payments whilst i pay off the payday loan companies. I fully intend to clear down the debts. now whilst receiving the default notices, some of the creditors played ball and accepted, santander have totally ignored me and vanquis moved straight to 1st choice debt collection. for the 1st choice collections i rang them up and said you can have 40% of the debt in full and final or we can go to court up to you as i dont care. they accepted the 40%. (doing well so far) now santander, totally different ball game and the major problem at the moment. I have credit cards (x2) total debt 5.5k combined, santander loan (6k) o/d with santander 2.6k. now santander wrote me a nice letter to tell me that they were going to take money from my current account to service the other accounts. at this point i moved bank accounts to nationwide (basic account) and setup a standing order to repay to each santander account the sum of £10 goodwill whilst we negotiated reduced rates on all account repayments held with them. they have totally ignored all my letters. I have made monthly payments to them and sent them recorded delivery letters fully explaining what was going on and that other creditors had accepted etc. i also included full expenditure each time. i have today received a multitude of letters all on the same day, ranging from default notices to notices saying a representitive will be calling on sunday to see me, through to just plain no we dont accept notices. ok with me so far, everyone i deal with has accepted except santander, i am not sure what else i can do, i keep writing and making the offers to repay both the full debt using reduced repayments. had they of helped me in the first place this would not have happened. so i am stuck on what to do next. Visit a branch and get very loud? write again? wait for the so called visit (should be fun as I'm a big lad and like a challenge). what do you guys suggest i thought i was dong everything correctly, i acknowledged the debts, kept them in touch, included expenditure statements, negotiated payments down to manageable amounts. I'm just stuck with santander?? anyone got any advice on what i should do? do they actually call at your house (santader i mean?) i should point out i own nothing and live in rented accommodation, car on finance. look forward to hearing from you. Pete

thanks for both replies, I will complete setting up the new account today and will then set about getting the letter all sent to the various creditiors. thanks. Pete

Morning All, Just a quic note in the hope that you will be able to offer me some advice, I have got some increasing debts (due to APR increases and payday loans). Background is due to a car accident in which an uninsured driver hit me, i have had to pay out emergeny monies to repair my car, else i cannot drive to work and earn. In an effort to do this i approached my bank 'santander', despite never missing any payments on any of my credit agreements with them, they refused to increase my loans, or help me to debt consolidate. so i turned to payday loans to help to raise the monies i needed to fix my car, i genuinely believed i could repay everything on time, and i did, however i found that i had to revisit the payday loans and reborrow, as the outgoing payment was so high i had nothing left. So now i find myself in a situation where my entire salary is gone just trying to service bills. i need to restructure my finances to survive, i read up about debt managments and contacted a few companies (baines & ernst, payplan, cccs etc) and from the conversations i have managed to draw up my own plan in which i have worked out my income against my outgoings and whats left, i then pro ratared the payment by % based on the debts owed to each person. I am now struggling as to how to write all this down in a letter to the banks and credit card companies, and also the payday loan companies? please can you help in any way in guiding me on how to put together a letter to try to explain all this, or even if you have any templates i can use? I am a previous donator to this site. thanks very much for any advice that is offered. Pete.

Cheers All, I'll give your letter a bash and see how we go, I'll get back to you with an update. Thanks. Pete B. ps. is an intrest free repayment plan a viable option should i need to go that way? if so are there any letters i can use to help to get this request accross? many thanks for the help (as ever.!!) v. fast response Thanks.

Hi All, Just a quick note, I am having a bit of bother understanding something Vanquis are doing to me. I had a credit card for over 2 yrs, i missed one payment (due to moving banks and setting up new direct debits) they closed my account and cancelled my card. I am making regular payments of £50 on the account. My available credit was £1250, my balance from what i can tell is now £1350. I make the £50 payment each month on the 15th of the month, they send me a statement showing my credit limit is £0 , deduct the £50 and add back £81 in charges. I ring up to discuss and they tell me my account is over its limit. I point out that my limit says £0 on the statement??? They continue to add charges for over limit fees, late payment fees, purchase intrest, cash intrest, etc etc. What is the best way to deal with getting the thing frozen in some way? I am happy to pay something to reduce the amount, but this is getting silly as its going up and up despite regular payments. I am not sure what I can / cannot do in this instance? I would prefer if this was a fixed loan in some way. is that possible with credit card companies? Any help advice would be grateful Pete B.

Well after almost 2 months waiting and no reply to your letter, they finally wrote to me today to say they would no longer be persuning the debt. I cannot thank you enough as without your help I would have been struggling to repay something. thank you very very much. I'm off to make a small donation now. Pete.

Thanks for that, I will have a read. I will send your letter off tomororw and I will update this with any replies I get, thanks again for a very fast response and advise. Pete B.

Thank you Very Much, i will send your letter off tomorrow. Can I ask one more thing please. They are writing to me at my parent house and the are using c/o (care of) to get the letter to my parents. Am I ok to reply from this address, my parent are happy for me to use this address, as Call Serve dont actually have my rented address. I just wanted to make sure that I get it all right and dont put my foot in it etc.. Many thanks. Pete B.

Hi, I'm a little stuck and dont know which way to turn. I have received a letter from 'CALL SERVE', who say they are demanding payment on behalf of DEBT MANAGERS LTD - EQUIDEBT LTD. They are requesting £5032.08 immediately, and failure to comply could result in a DEBT COLLECTOR calling or a COUNTY COURT JUDGMENT being registered against me. First off I am unsure what this debt relates to, I think it may be from back on 1999 - 2001 when I had an abbey national bank loan. I made a few payment back at the start, but i lost everything due to divorce, house, all money (savings), and job due to hitting the drink. Its taken me years to get myself back together, and now I have a job and I am renting a house, I have very little money left each month due to maintenance etc. I am really very worried as I dont need this, its keeping me awake with worry. I really dont know what to do and in what order etc? I dont know what i am entitled to do and what I am not etc? Please, Please can anyone offer me some guidance and point me in the right direction / any advise? I'm at my wits end with worry. Many thanks in advance. Pete B.