Thanks for the reply, it seems like a mindfield just like bank charges (our cases for that were unsuccesful). We have a limited number of Credit card statments which show PPI, alas we don't have enough to make an informed amount to claim, a SAR will only go back 6 years I believe 3 accounts were cleared in august 2005, which is really annoying. Some of the claim companies are advertising going back 10 in a claim. We are really at a loss of what to do. Thanks for the advice

Hi we (My wife and I) need some advice. We are in a joint DMP with payplan and it is going well as far as making regular payments, payment history and generally hassles from all creditors. Some debts go as far back as 2007 (point of initial Default). We are being plagued with PPI claim outfits (because of our credit history and status being sold we presume). Some of our debts had PPI which to us implies the outstanding amount could be unrealistic. We also have records (limited not full) of PPI's in force dated 2005 is it possible to make a claim for these. We realise that any success at claiming will come off our debt where creditors are concerned. We have the option of using "Stake your Claim" part of PayPlan to assess the claims even the non creditor ones. What we were wondering is if we do this and claim via stake your claim which seems the logical step would they be able to retain any Monies from non creditors to put towards out DMP without our consent. Any help would be appreciated M'n'M

PCB, where you say It was stated to us that this 15% (in addition) fee applies when they renegotiate a debt, IE getting interest stopped or more concerning getting charges reversed, so in affect getting 2 charges amounting £70 reversed would be a renegotiation of the debt. I know its something but very little on £2000 pound debt for example, yet it puts the debt into another Fee bracket. One of the concerns we had was the difference on how the fee's are applied. The 25% total wipe out fee is applied to any debt that is totally removed this coupled with 8% is a max of 33%, a saving of 67% in real terms, Reasonable if it were possible. However the 15% for renegotiation is not calculated on the amount that is saved IE if they get £100 taken off a £2000 debt the fee is not on the £100 saved it is based on the £1900 remaining so you would be paying 23% (15% + 8%) of £1900 as a fee, which to us was too large a fee for very little result. Also how it is worked out is inconsistent with the other fees. So it would appear from was told to us, that with a debt that is handed to them for £2000, if they get it reduce by what ever means to £1900 then the 15 % fee applies, at this point the total wipe off would have been tried and tested and have failed because that is their first avenue to the creditor, (the validity of the debt). You would then be left as we understood it with £1900 outstanding to pay of the debt and a further 23% on top (£437) so in reality as we understood it you would pay a 15% fee of £285 for a saving £100. This was not acceptable to us. The 15% should only apply if the debt is renegotiated in some way. However this can simply be having the interest stopped. This post is an opinion based on the information quoted to us and uses ficticious figures for ease of calculation however the percentages are as quoted. Hope it helps in some way.

Thanks PCB and DD, I did manage to track an address and telephone number for FSF, they have a facebook group although the ammount of followers it has suggests its the employees. I gave them a call and got the girl to go through the security check and confirm the contact name (so right company) then I expalined our wish to cancel, she took the message and said she would pass it on, the guy then gave quite a speedy response and left a confirmation on our voicemail, that he had recieved the message, could i give him a call. I have kept the voicemail as confirmation we have actually cancelled within 7 days, I will now send a letter to support this fact. We luckily had not paid anything just made an arrangement as we would have had to open another bank account to do it. I must say at this point, I am not saying this company is bad, just that having understood what it is they actually do and how (process wise) they do it, it doesn't actually at this point suit our circumstances. Will will however keep you posted with our progress with our situation as you suggest. Thanks very much for your time and patience thus far

Just an observation but doesn't the V5 show just details of the registered keeper not the owner, I bill of sale reciept proof of purchase if you still have one, or maybe a signed statement from your father stating that he has no finacial intrest in the vehicle but merely the registered keeper because of your work/travel situation. I have heard before that V5 is not proof of ownership. it is worth checking out.

To site admin I did start our own thred with regard to FSF http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/getting-out-debt/257040-advice-first-step.html I'm not sure whether if it was correct to talk about our particular circumstances in this thread. sorry

Hi DD and thanks again for your response, I think you have misunderstood what my proposal would be. If at the time we owed a total of £10,000 to multipule creditors and £2000 (20%) to an individual creditor that creditor would receive 20% of our calculated disposable income per month until the £2000 is paid off. They would get the balance as it was at the time we make the offer, the other creditors would receive a payment each month based on their relative % of our total debt. If they except our proposal they would all recieve the relative balances as they stand. What we find difficult as I am sure others do is that we make payments only to find them gobbled up by added charges or interest, which doesn't help a resolution which we are led to believe is the ultimate goal when someone has defaulted. After reading my own post back and realising that if they have no enforceable CCA they will more than likely except the proposal, should we also request that no further entries be made to our credit files once the proposal is excepted, as defaults have already been recorded with regards to the debts on our credit files. I have also tried to find out how to cancel FSF, as the hardcopies left with us does not state how to cancel and how long we have to do so. The only correspondance we have is a name and phone number. It does state however: As soon as we receive your first payment of £*** plus documentation fee we will contact your creditors to obtain details of your debt, as well as uniquely requesting sight of your credit agreements. Just return the enclosed forms and let us do the rest. It is worded 'debt solution programme' and goes onto say in bold letters 'Please be advised that this is not a debt management programme'. We did not fill in any bank details for the Standing order just signed the form agreeing to forward the details when we have them. This was a concern raised to me after the event as to why standing order and not Direct Debit, the reason is simple in hindsight, Direct Debit has a gaurentee. Any suggestions and imput would again be warmly recieved, and we thank you for your time again.

Thanks also DD, We are as you can imagine sceptical about it all, my intent at this time is not to challenge the debts we have with creditors but merely to make them all manageable. What I would like to do, is write to them all, suggesting to them that we pay amounts that are a % representation of our total debt providing that they do not add further charges or interest from the date of the letter. So if at the time we owed a total of £10,000 and £2000 (20%) to an individual creditor that creditor would receive 20% of our calculated disposable income per month until the £2000 is paid off. Our plan would be to stipulate that the proposed amount to each creditor in the event they refused the proposal we would set aside this amount for future payments until a reasonable solution can be made, and that we don’t consider that any of the accounts that have accrued these amounts to stay open and active to accrue more charges as reasonable. As our financial situation and resolution to these debts being settled in a reasonable and timely fashion is reliant on no further charges or interest being added to the balance. We were thinking that at the end of the letter that we would suggest that if the proposal were to be refused by them based on a credit agreement could they please forward a signed copy of the agreement with their written refusal of our proposal. Could they also insure that all correspondence be sent by post to our home address. Any suggestions are warmly welcomed.

sequenci, thanks for your speedy reply, With regard to your first point I entirely agree with you the worst case scenario quoted to us is nothing more than sales talk. Your second point although I understand what you are saying, it is argueble that if they are persuing you for payment for what some post suggests can be almost a year and during that time continue to charge charges and interest its hardly demonstrates wanting resolution. My wife has 3 debts in the hands of collection agencies I understand that it is not the root for everyone, what it does seem to have guaranteed is the interest and charges for that debt have stopped and she has a definate reducing debt each month. I have to go for a short time, I have a plan for our particualr situation, I will try to post the details later I would appreciate your opinon if possible. Thanks again sequenci

Hi I have read this thread, because my wife and I have signed up with FSF, within the last 48hrs, they have yet to recieve direct details as a means to take payment for their services. The charges stated to us were: £75 admin Fee to start, (with us it was agreed it would be included with the first monthly ammount). There is a 8% fee for them handling your debts. This 8% is of the orginal amount of debt you hand over to them. There is a 25% fee for any debt they get written off (this would have to be in full down the road of unenforceable because of the next fee). There is a 15% fee for any debt they get renagotiated (This would be where they get interest stopped or fee's repaid, they cannot charge the 25% for this as the debt is not written off in full). The "Expert" caller with us did state that best case scenario was total wipe of debt (100%) with a Time frame (based on the payment we would make) of 1 year 7 months, the payments made for this scenario would be the 33% (25% + 8%) , and that would be of the total ammount of debt passed as it is a best case scenario, total debt wipe. It gets more complicated with the 15% fee. The bit that worried US was the fact that he mentioned a worse case scenario and gave a timescale and % for that, 50% debt wipe would be 4.5 years based on our payment ammount, he couldn't possibly know this as he doesn't yet know how the 50% reduction would be achieved. I would like to thank Chezney66, The penny dropped when I read your post I am pretty sure I now understand the difference with these companies and how it all works. If you sign up with FSF and hand over debts of 10,000 you agree to pay them 8% while they handle your debts ( not sure how they calculate the %) but rest assured if you pull out, whilst no renagotiations or wipe offs have been made then you will owe them money. After reading posts with regard to this company I have seen that during this process with this company that some now have further defaults, some posts say that they have been paying hundreds of pounds for in some cases over 12 months, with their creditors recieving nothing, what I don't understand if nothing has been paid to your creditors for over a year, why have they not taken you to court to enforce your agreement and demand full settlement, as I understand it they can't, you have put your account in dispute and authorised someone to act on your behalf. The way it seems to me that in a best case scenario total wipe of a unenforceable debt of £10,000 you would end up paying £3,300. (33% the 8% + 25% rightoff fee) potentially you haven't payed £6,700. Could you have done this yourself saving the 33%, to be honest I don't think we all could, would it get more stressfull for some if we did yes it almost certainly would. The total wipe off scenario is unlikely in my opinion ( I have a bit of a conspiracy theory as to why, and intend to do alot of research ). We have alot of work and reading to do now. I think it is safe to say though whether we tackle our debt, or go forward with FSF its is going to get tougher for a while.

Hello, My wife and I have just signed up with first step Finance, having realised the reality of our debt and inability to make the planned repayments and the negative impact the interest and fee's are having on the situation we decided to look into a cold call from the above company. A bonded courier came with the paperwork for us to fill in today, after this visit it seemed far to easy, so I have checked the web about this company I obviously now do not wish to proceed with this company. As we would of needed to open a new bank account, we were not in a position to fill out the dd mandate for payment and the admin fee, just a signed form and that the details would follow when the new account was set up, no debit card details were given. The copies we were left, stated that they would start acting and contacting creditors until the first payment had been made on the agreed date. What I am trying to find out (nothing in copies that were left with us) is, would anyone know what the cancellation period would be and if there is a standard letter to do so. First step do have My current bank account number as the overdraft on this account and the bank name was in the list of creditors (they wouldn't, would they?). Having done some serious reading on the net today and personal experience of calls after money from our creditors, I think I now understand what is going on with alot of our debt, although we pay what we can when we can it is not enough we become in arrears because sometimes we cannot pay the minimum, some times we pay late, but we do pay something but inherantly this attracts charges regularly which only make things worse. An observation I have made recently having put a couple of our creditors on the spot, is they do not want default in the county court as reading between the lines they themsleves are raising the dispute issue, once this has happened, interest and charges would have to stop, which is not in their business interest, it is my understanding (laman) very few courts would instruct payment in full if you could prove finacial hardship (which is why most of us are in the positions we are in), which would result in a court ordered payment plan which they don't want. We are now more confident than ever to sort out our debt ourselves so I have more reading to do. Any information or advice with regard to cancellation with first Step Finance or my opinion, is warmly welcomed.

Hi, I hope you can help, My wife and I like many others waited nervously for the highcourts decision and were very disapointed at the outcome. Having recieved no correspondance from the court with regard to the status of our 2 stayed claims, we have recently received a statement with regard to our joint account which at the time the court case was stayed had an active overdraft, the (what I assume is a yearly statement) showes the ammount but not as a Minus figure but just as a balance (a ploy i think for us to enquire) I know for a fact that the account owes them money. My concern is this, we have recieved nothing from the court regarding the stayed claims, only two yearly staments from Santander with regard to the overdraft ammount, one statement was sent during the stay and one was sent after the high court case. My question is what should we do, we are currently in the process of setting up a debt management program.

From what we can see about stays in the forum the posts are mostly from 2006 when the mercantile case was on, Is the OFT case different in terms of getting a stay lifted, the reasons on the template letter/s are very valid reasons for getting a stay lifted, should we be applying for a stay we know the extra cost will be ours with no gaurantee of the application being sucessful, we are a bit unsure on how and if to proceed.

Thanks for that ohoh4312 it did help, until cardiff county court stayed all claims, is it likely that we will get the stay lifted if we apply to the court? We don't really know on what reasoning they would grant such a request, and it was the directions hearing anyway. Are we missing something or are we obliged to sit and wait. Intresting that after the stay was issued we had a fresh DCA letter about the upaid overdraft, we are 100% on how do deal with that epecially if it goes to court (unlikely) fair is fair if they can have a stay so can we as the ammount is made in part of bank charges. Any suggestions on our stay or is it sit and wait? Thanks M'n'M

Sorry to bump this but we would be grateful for some advise on our post above. Anything would be appreciated. Thanks

Hi again. We Have looked at the letters from the court with the date on them and it says Upon the courts own motion. the court has made this order of its own initiative without a hearing. If you object to the Order, you must make an application to have it set aside, varied or stayed within 7 days of recieving it. IT IS ORDERED THAT 1. directions will be given in the case by the designated Judge, His Honour *********** on the ********* at *************. 2. The parties May appear in person or make representation as to how the case should proceed provided a copy of the representations is sent to the court and the other side at least 7 days prior to the hearing. We have not responded thinking that this was when the case was to be heard are we correct. Please help We don't want to get this far and mess up.

Thanks for the advice. We will contact the bank to discuss the status of the account. Can anyone tells us what to do next as we are getting concerned, reading other threads we have had no direction from the court as to what to submit or suply just a date and time, we have filled in AQ's for both claims and they are both being done at the same time. we have all correspondance filed ready to duplicate and print off. Also we have informed the bank since the the online claims that the ammount will increase due to the daily intrest how do we allow for that in court on the day because the ammount now is higher than the original ammount claimed for. Any suggestions welcome. Thanks M'n'M

How do find we find out if they have added a default against us, get an up to date credit reference I presume. Does anyone know which one of the two main ref agencies abbey use? and does August seem a long time to you?

We had the account privalidges revolked overdraft because of the dispute and us transferring business to another account and the overdraft was at £1100 pounds to which we have not paid a penny because the account was/is in dispute. We have recieved letters from two DCA's now requesting payment in full and have stipulated to both that the account (to which the so called debt arrose from is in dispute) and that it is currently within the county court process and would be resloved as result of this process. We have relayed this through telephone communication, scotcall have stipulated that may send a representative at which point i mentioned they would be unwelcome . I have looked in the debt collection threads but I am a bit unsure of what to do as the so called debt is far less than the claim and have put in writing to the bank that it would/could be deducted form the refund of charges. Have we done right or wrong not quite sure? I have just phone the countycourt to track the progress and all parties to attend on a date in august?

Thanks karnevil, The wife will rest a bit easier, she keeps thinking that our case is going to be the one they go all the way with.

Can somebody please clarify? We submitted the AQ toegether with a further payment to our local court as it has been transfered to our local court, we have today recieved a letter which reads, This Claim has been transfered to another court for allocation. On reciept, the file will be referred to a procedural judge who will allocate the claim to track and give case management directions. Details of the judge's decision will be sent to you in a notice of allocation. We are a bit paranoid now, why would they transfer the case twice? Is this usual, can anyone say?

Ok we are sending this hope it does the job. Dear Sir Thank you for your letter, “Without Prejudice” dated *** ***** 2007. In response, we decline your offer of £****.** as this falls very short of the sum claimed. May we remind you that due to the daily interest being added, the claim currently stands at £****.** in bank charges interests and costs. We will except the amount of £****.** as full and final settlement providing this amount is paid without further delay and without condition, any amount that has already been refunded relating to charges WILL NOT be offset against the full and final payment as any refunds have already been taken into account as shown on the schedule you have received. Any action other than a cheque for the sum of £****.** made payable to [our names] by return of post to the above address will result in the return of the allocation questionnaire to the county court incurring a further cost to you of £100 and further interest, all correspondence regarding this claim including refunds already paid and all offers made will be made available to the court at its request. Once the payment has been made and has cleared we will notify the court the claim has been settled. We trust this makes our position absolutely clear. Yours faithfully

Ok thanks both very much we will draft letters for post tomorrow. We have not received a cheque or a credit to either of the accounts being claimed for. We will reject the offers being made and request the new amount (because of the incurring daily interest) and give them 7 days for full settlement without conditions or we will then submit the allocation questionnaires without further correspondence, and supply all the correspondence we have received and details of the goodwill gestures received and offered to the county court. thanks again

Can someone please give us some advice?

we have recieved letters today from the bank making an offer for half of our court claim ( bare in mind that they have paid a good will gesture which we have taken off the claim but the intrest remains because as we have stipulated to them "interest for that amount remains as it would be difficult to show relevance to a specific charge or time"). Is this ok or do you think they can challenge this , also they say that they defend the claim on the basis we have to expect to pay something for going overdrawn but with the goodwill gestures its been substancially reduced and that if they pay the full ammount of the claim then they would incure costs for the time that we were ovedrawn etc. Is this the typical response or have we made errors.