thanks yes you guys were right. There was no sign of them. Now however it seems Barclaycard have passed on one of my credit card debts to Mercers debt collections limited. Got a letter from them today stating "a local representative may call at my home to secure full payment of debt"....what exactly are my rights when it comes to these Debt Collectors? Do i just do as i was advised to do with Global Vantedge and send out the letter template linked above? Can these people come to my door and demand thousands of pounds and not go away? should i call them and explain the situation regarding IVA? I am very confused (and scared i must admit) when dealing with these people.....i just wish the IVA proposal would hurry up and be put forward as these phone calls and threats are driving me into depression. Thank god i found this site and you people to help and advise me otherwise i would feel totally alone. thank you to everyone helping me Melanie

k thank you Scott so i should not answer door to them? or politely tell them i do not wish to speak to them? dont want to get into more trouble

hi i am in the progress of setting up an IVA (the company is drawing up a proposal at present) and of course i am being incessantly bombarded with phone calls from my creditors (mainly credit card companys). Now however i have recieved a card through my door today letting me know that a representative from a company called "Global Vantedge" will be calling on me tomorrow between the hours of 8am and 9pm on behalf of MBNA. Anyone know anything about these guys? are they debt collectors? and if so do i just let them in? really worried about what i should do. My husband will be at work al lday tomorrow so its just me and the kids indoors.

if my IVA is not approved by my creditors would i still be able to approach the CCCS or Payplan to set up a dmp instead? The guy i spoke to from the CCCS assured me this was so before he forwarded my details to this IVA company but i thought i better ask you guys ( i trust your advice more) .

getting the paperwork ready for collection from an IVA company recommended by the CCCS. I let things get on top of me before christmas and did something very stupid. I am trying to get things moving but am finding it very difficult at the moment to get any kind of motivation going. Have lots of forms to fill out tonight that have to be ready for tomorrow.

hello my husband and i are both self employed (we have a retail business) and our finding it impossible to pay our monthly debts due to the downturn in our business. We would have been in trouble months ago if not for the fact we put our heads in the sand and have lived on credit for the past year or so We have now decided enough is enough and before we get ourselves in even more trouble its time to face our debts and problems. My husband contacted the CCCS last week and was told an IVA would suit us better than a DMP as the amount of personal debt we are in would take too long to pay back on a DMP. Since then we have been waiting to talk to the company recommended by the CCCS (Grant Thornton i think), we missed their phone call initially while at work and have left messages for the contact name we have there but are still waiting to actually speak to her. We are not going to be able to pay all of our bills this month so tomorrow i am going to the bank to cancel any direct debits not on our "essential" list as drawn up by the CCCS and send a letter to each one explaining the situation. Anyone know if it is an instant thing canceling a direct debit? or are they going to give me the "its gonna take 5 working days" speech? We bank with Barclays and 3 of our credit cards and a loan are also with them .....how would i handle this? will they just keep taking the money from our account anyway and then incurring overdrawn fees (we have a £1000 overdraft with no room left) ? Went to Nat West last wednesday to set up another account that we can move all our essential direct debits over too but it was "reffered" (only wanted a normal current account and was very surprised at the amount of information they required to set one up) and they said they would let us know so we are still waiting (going in to bank tomorrow to chase it up) Nat West i noticed is a subsidiary of Royal bank of Scotland which is another of our creditors (we have 2 credit cards from RBS..) would that be a problem do you think? Any do's or dont's when sending letters explaining situation to creditors?? In the pack the CCCS sent me there is a template letter for letting a creditor know that a DMP is being developed by the CCCS...can i change that to IVA and use that do you think? whats the best way to send them an amount we can afford? (in some cases this will be way less than their minimum payment ) can someone in simple terms please explain what happens to our home at the end of an IVA? do we have to sell or remortgage? our home is probably valued at 230k at the moment and we are paying an interest only mortgage of 188k... so many worries and so many questions i feel quite overwhelmed by all this and i have been feeling detached and uninterested in anything for a few months now...really trying to get myself going forward and dig ourselves out of this hole we have stupidly put ourselves in just glad my husband found this website with all you nice people please help us Melanie

Hi there my husband started this thread a couple of weeks ago before he contacted the cccs. I havent been feeling up to dealing with our financial problems up to now so he suggested i read a few threads on this site to get an idea of how much help is available to people like us who seem to have messed up very badly. I have to admit i do feel a little better after reading so many helpfull posts by people only to willing to help. I have got a couple of questions if there is someone out there able to answer? We are trying to set up an IVA with the company the cccs reccomended to us but so far havent managed to contact them directly (they left a message on our answerphone while we were at work, we called back but they was unavailable so we left a message ) . We wont have the money this month to pay the cc bills or loans completely so have decided to pay each of the cc £30 or £40 which is well below their minimum payments. I am going to the bank on Monday morning to cancel the direct debits. What is the best way to pay the cc once i cancel the dd's ? should i just use the pay in slips that come with the statements? or should i pay them by cheque directly? the cccs suggested i send them a letter explaining our financial position and qoute the client ref number they gave us, is their the correct template for this letter available on this site? Also, we bank with Barclays but 3 of our cc's and one of our loans is from Barclays so i assume we need to change banks and move our mortgage DD over to the new account. We went to Nat West yesterday to set up a new account and was amazed at the questions we had to answer (value of house? car? icome?), we was there for over an hour only for them to tell us the account has been "reffered" and they will let us know the outcome. We dont want to borrow any money or set up an overdraft so why would they need to credit check us? Nat west we found out is a subsidiary of the RBS and seeing as 2 of our cc's are with them we wonder whether that also may be a problem????? I guess we should let Barclays know what is happening otherwise they will just continue taking the Barclayloan and Barclaycard payments from our account and charging us for going over our overdraft? should i use the same letter that i am sending to the CC companys? sorry for needing so much help . My head is spinning and i find it all so overwhelming . I think if it was up to me i would stay in bed all day with the covers over my head but my husband insists i get up and face the problems (he also needs the help as he works for long hours, so it is up to me to do the letter writing) thank you to anyone that can help me with these letters and questionsi i have Melody