The position is that after 1 year of payments through DMP at about 70% of minimum my main creditors seem not to be supporting it and I am wondering if I should continue it or reduce amount I pay. DMP is now self-managed and this is first month. HSBC: Don't seem to know what day it is. Loan (£5K balance) has been referred to in-house DCA and they have just re-started applying charges and interest of 20% to Credit Card (£3.5K balance). Default notice for loan. Santander (£7K balance loan): Now noting arrears and informing CRAs. Have written to say they note but don't formally accept reduced payments and will eventually default and close account. No default notice yet. No interest. MBNA (£9k balance card): They have said will pass to DCA but have heard nothing for 15 months. Last message from them was no interest or charges will be applied as gesture of good will. Looks like that is true. Default notice received. Repaying over £600 per month. Trying to decide if it is worth trying to continue with reduced payments or if I'm just delaying the inevitable action e.g. passing to DCA. Repayments would take up to 5 years if no interest. Been thinking about bankruptcy still. Its worrying me quite a lot and on my mind even when I think it isn't. Interested on views of bankruptcy as a route. But would prefer to repay at level I can afford if they are supportive but no way can I afford minimum payments per contracts or and/or interest. Can't see that working and court action etc will come eventually?

Hi, My DMP is with CCCS.

Thanks Zingy. I have offered Metropolitan what I have been paying HSBC. Will see what happens. But will also send HSBC an SAR. Have not CCA'd them before because I hoped we would make an arrangement ... But not accepting reduced payments and not telling me either way - but then eventually saying time to reach agreement has run out is the best yet!

This thread has been really helpful for me - thanks to all the Companies House geeks! HSBC have told me that my loan has been passed to MCS and that I should make repayments to MCS and correspond with MCS. Is this not a bit daft given their relationship with HSBC? I imagine any benefit they hope to get from this nonsense depends on MCS being seen as a separate DCA? I think I read somewhere that MCS were actually easier to deal with than HSBC and would negotiate ...

I've been making payments through a DMP arranged by one of the charities since January. With HSBC I have personal loan £6K, credit card £4K and overdraft £1K. I'd say the repayments I'm making are about 60% of normal payment. HSBC never confirmed or denied that they accepted the DMP until about 1 month ago when they said reduced credit card (only) repayments would be acceptable for 8 months from now. Have received default notices against loan and credit card. I haven’t CCA’d credt card (nor whatever you do for a loan). I’ve not challenged them at all just asked for help and paid what I could. Have sent them a few blasts though for not responding and being too arrogant. Position now is that they have passed loan to Metropolitan Collection. I have sussed these people out thanks to others on the forum and know they are HSBC’s in-house debt collectors. I wrote back to Metropolitan and said – ‘Who are you’, I’m making reduced payments since Jan, If you’re not happy then let the Court decide, ‘I’ve heard nothing from HSBC except threats for a year now’. That sort of thing. I also said that if they continued collection then I would reduce payments to them (only) and redistribute the money to my other more supportive creditors. Remarkable that that list so far includes MBNA credit card with £10K balance. There are no other significant creditors. And I told them they were a paper company. That should go down well! I copied the letter to Helen Packwood at HSBC and received a response from someone in service improvement having treated my letter as a complaint. Their letter is informative. They have passed the loan to Metropolitan ‘and all repayments must be made to them’. They say the DMP was declined because the amount I offered was not sufficient to cover the ‘interest on any agreement we are able to make on the accounts’. They then say that this would be irresponsible on their part! Seems like they say they were not willing to cut the interest, although none has been charged recently? and they say now Metropolitan have the account there will be no more interest or charges! Curiously, the second letter from Metropolitan asked me to confirm if I was offering a monthly payment. Please could I request some pointers on how to proceed with Metropolitan Collection? Should I grovel, challenge, ignore, send a CCA or SAR? Or all of these? I’d prefer to keep up the reduced payments but not for ever and not with the possibility that in 2 or 3 years time they could change their minds and take court action. I have been considering bankruptcy – getting my head around the idea and reading up on it. Not sure that’s best but it’s becoming more attractive. Thanks. Col45