So myself and my wife have been on a DMP with Stepchange since 2009. Before I go onto the specific topic id like to say how helpful they have been over the years and completely free unlike euro debt who I stupidly went with to begin with. Anyway back on topic, we are in the fortunate situation that we have some money coming our way soon which we want to use to pay the debt off but we also are aware the creditors might accept a lower percentage to settle the debt. In total we owe around 10 different creditors between us, all credit cards and student overdrafts. We lived beyond our means which got us into the debt and learnt a valuable lesson. We have paid off just under 10k at £185 a month for the last 6 years (never missed a payment but that doesn't seem to count for much). We have 9k left to pay off. Our query is that we want to buy a house once the debt is clear and built up our credit score again. If we offer for full and final settlement say at 60% of each debt will this be recorded on our credit file as only partially settled and would it affect a mortgage application further down the line? Or would it be better to settle in full in terms of our future credit score and mortgage application? I hope this makes sense. Thanks in advance for all your help.

Hello. Im thinking of asking stepchange to setup and manage a DMP for me. from experience are these good people to be dealing with? , do they have decent clout in the market to help keep the creditors of my back?

hello, first time here after reading some posts thought I would join in the hope I could get some advice. I have a dmp with pay plan, had since 2011. 5 creditors and according to my pay plan summary have approximately £10,700 remaining to pay. My review is due however I am now in a better position financially and want to get my debts paid off quicker. I looked into a loan to consolidate just to see what the monthly payments would be over a 3 year term and it would be manageable. The issue being that I would be unable to get a loan. I want to look into the option of ending my dmp to try and get my debts paid off sooner, ideally within a 3 year timescale. There are 2 creditors that I could pay off within 12 months but as pay plan payments are set, the dmp wouldn't allow for this. I'm worried however if the creditors returned to the previous payments with additional interest that I wouldn't be able to go it alone. If anyone could possibly give me some advice as to what my options are, whether negotiations with creditors are possible and what I need to do it would be massively appreciated. Pay plan are hounding me for my review however I don't want to speak to them until I know what my options are as to whether I can get rid of this debt quicker. Many thanks

Hi, Just found out that my parents are in a lot of credit card debt - more than I thought. High tens of thousands. It's at the point where my Dad is drawing cash from the cards to pay the mortgage and the cards, whilst his income goes on food and bills. I want to help them onto a DMP in the first instance via StepChange and then look at CCA'ing the accounts afterwards. I have some questions that I can't find the answers to conclusively: 1. DMP followed by CCA requests - is that the best order? I think so. All accounts were opened late 90's/early 00's. 2. Some of their cards are jointly owned, some are not. Would StepChange need a call from each, resulting in two payments and two DMP's, or do they bundle them into a single DMP with a single payment? Thanks

Hi Guys, A whilse since I've posted but have finally kicked the DMP Company and doing it myself. I have writting and sent the letters stating my proposals to the three companies all of which have been increased as I have been able to distribute the fee I was paying to each creditor. I have also asked them to keep the accounts in the state they were in when I left the DMP. I.e with interest frozen. Have I done the right things here? I want to clear these debts and I think this is the best ways of doing it. On another note, if they were to charge interest, does anyone know what the likely rates will be? I have two Bank of Scotland and one now with Wescot. Thanks for your help!

Hi all, I've been on a DMP with payplan for just over 10 years. Here are the current rough scores on the doors of my creditors (payplan estimates): Cabot Financial Ltd £9,452.17 (HSBC Loan) Cabot Financial Ltd £277.27 (Cap one card) Erudio Student Loans Ltd £1,874.34 (defaulted student loan) Moorcroft Group Plc £3,410.50 (egg loan) Moorcroft Group Plc £1,145.68 (egg card) All of these are well over 6 years old, so don't have an effect on my credit, indeed, we got a new mortgage last year without any problem. I currently pay £136 a month, but can't pay more, so it'll still be a long time before these things are cleared; we could also do with that money each month - we've got a 3 and a 6 year old who deserve it spent on them instead! Has anyone got any ideas about where to go from here? I'd love to just say "stuff it - you can all have £1 a month", but I don't know if it's worth the risk - the DCAs have been very quiet and I don't much like dealing with them. (Does anyone?) Any thoughts gratefully received. Chocks

Between us my OH and myself have £25k's worth of debt, the biggest debt is to OH's Halifax credit card for £9k, the rest is spread between 9 other creditors and includes a £2600 overdraft to Santander (and yes we are mortified for letting things get this bad) We are in the process of setting up a DMP with StepChange as we are both in our late 60's (I know old enough to know better) and don't want our sons to be left with having to sort stuff when we die. I was wondering if anyone has had any dealings with StepChange, they seem to have good reviews but I'd be interested to hear of any personal experiences from any forum users. Our last car payment is due October 2015 and they reckon that if we pay more once this is finished then we will be debt free in 5 years, there seems to be no other way tbh and we are at the end of our tethers. Many thanks

Hello, I would be very grateful for any advice / input on my options to move forward with my debt. I currently owe £50k to about 11 creditors. I have been on a DMP for 3 years paying £140 a month. I am self-employed, I rent and now live by myself so am covering all bills etc. I will be paying off debt until 2046 so am thinking IVA or Bankruptcy may be better solution to enable me to move forward in my life within 10 years. Many thanks in advance FF

Hello everyone. I'm repaying some of my student loan, or rather my student overdraft, through StepChange. I really like StepChange, they've been nothing but nice to me and I've had no problems until now. To my horror, my recent payment has disappeared. I have to pay monthly, due by the 10th. I paid this month's installment on the 3rd, and it takes about 5 days to process so it should have made it on time. Only, 2 weeks later, they still haven't gotten it. There's no record of it at all. I used the exact same details to send this money. There were no mistakes in the bank details of the company, I double and triple and god knows how many times checked. If you compare the receipts of my previous successful payments, all details are absolutely identical to those on the receipt of the missing payment. Except the date of course. Now I'm sitting here wondering what will happen to me, if I have to pay double, what my rights are. I've emailed them scans of my bank receipts of each payment for them to compare and see that there's no reason they shouldn't have my money, and I'm just waiting on a reply from them. What can happen to me here? Any help is appreciated. Thank you for reading.

I am hearing radio ads about reclaiming if you are in or have been in a dmp. I wouldn't want to use any reclaiming company. any thoughts on what could be claimed and how to go about it

My wife and I have been on a Stepchange DMP for 4 years - we had over 30 creditors to begin with but now have around 20 and have paid off about 70% of what we owed. One of the remaining creditors - Cahoot - has recently contacted us to say that they are writing off the amount owing (which is £1579) because they have failed to provide us with any statements since the start of the DMP. Looking at the other creditors there are 2 more on there who don't send us any statements either. Is it worth raising this as a complaint with them? If so what wording should we use? They have both frozen all interest and charges so we don't really want to upset them! Additionally my wife received a CCJ at the same time as we set up the DMP and we agreed with the creditor to pay £116 a month on a £9k judgement. They then sold this to Investec who we have paid via standing order ever since. They never ever send us a written statement and rather strangely no CCJ shows up on my wife's Noodle or Experian accounts - there definitely is one, we have a copy of it. Does anyone know if they have to supply a written statement of account for a CCJ?

Hi there I am seeking advice about approaching creditors for a settlement offer, and wondered if this was wise, and what is the best way to do it. I have been on a DMP with Payplan for over 10 years, drip feeding my debts - no IVA or bankruptcy. Originally over 25K, now looking at just over 5K. One of my creditors last year offered me a settlement of 60% write off (mbna), and I was lucky enough to have a family member to help out in that respect. This drastically reduced my overall debt. Still chipping away, I wondered if there was any merit in approaching other creditors on my DMP to see if similar settlement figures could be offered. Has anyone done this? Many thanks

Hi guys, I have a few debts i want to put into DMP however not all my debts as some debts i will be able to sustain as long as i can get my short terms into a DMP (such as 3 payday loans and 2 credit cards totalling £1800 (approx) ), firstly is it possible to select which debts you put into DMP? Secondly what are good DMP companies to turn too? I tried doing a review search but clearly alot of fake reviews for companies. I have tried stepchange but to be honest they made my situation worst, dont know if i just got a bad advisor or what, but everything he told me to do back fired and its not helped, CAB well they aren't helpful either. They wanted me to come in for an appointment to discuss my debts during working hours instead of just doing it over the phone and to be honest considering i started a new job to help with this situation i dont want to be asking for 3 hours pardon in my first 3 weeks, wouldn't be good at this company. Any advice would be much appreciated guys. Cheers:-)

Hi has anyone got a link to the guide expenses plz:???:

Contacted Stepchange, considering DMP, afraid of Shop Direct etc continuing to add on interest and late fees, have been charged hundreds over last few years, if I can get any back that would help. DEBTS: VISA 5300 no missed payments ISME 1600 (570 in arrears, not making min payments at moment) FIFTY PLUS 440 (100 arrears) KandCo 60 CAP ONE 200 CAP ONE 190 TSB 500 CO-OP 400 Income 1150 mthly. Basic outgoings 900, min payments 320. Am thinking of paring food, etc right down to £25 week just to try to get rid of the catalogue debts. They are already phoning every hour or less, not answering at moment. Letter from one asking me contact Reliable Collections. Would just go with Stepchange if not afraid of cat debts going up instead of down. Any advice much appreciated, apart from anything else I need to figure out how to do SAR to them. Thanks.

Hi there, long time reader here wondering if I could get some advice. I hope this is the correct sub forum but if not please let me know. To give a quick run down, I'm currently on a DMP with PayPlan and have been for 3 months. The aim of this is the get debt cleared by 2016/start 2017 at latest and get on track for a mortgage ASAP. What I'm concerned about right now is on my Noddle report all creditors are reporting the debt as an AP/AR rather than defaults, obviously I'm wanting it to default ASAP so the 6 year clock can start rather than when I finish paying the DMP. So now I'm stuck: 1. Do I stick with PP DMP suck it up that there will be no mortgage until 2023 2. Stop paying PP, with the aim to get it all defaulted then set up my own DMP I'm concerned about the risk of CCJs as that would affect renting and don't want it to go down that route. Any help would be great as I'm going around in circles in my head at the moment

Hi, first post so please bear with me. My husband submitted his NDL Cashflow to the HSBC in April this year when he realised he could not meet his commitments, mostly in return he has had letters advising him to get help from a DC and of course the phone calls. The HSBC also denied that he had written to them so he sent them copies of the recorded delivery receipts and complained about the way he had been treated, he did receive a better response to this and an apology and a refund of charges for that month, he also pointed out that he would not deal with this matter on the telephone and would they please deal with it by letter, he also received a letter offering him a reduced full and final settlement which he replied to saying if he had any money he would be making his monthly payments, no reply yet. Frankly this is one of the more baffling elements of being in debt, you do what you think is the right thing and offer what you can and it gets ignored? I cannot see any merit in totally ignoring an offer,they can always say no (in writing of course). I think it is back to the drawing board Rohannah

Hi folks, we joined a debt managemetn plan with immediate finance a couple of months back after over a year trying to directly sort things with our creditors, I know that immediate finance have been paying £1 per month to each as agreed to keep the debt alive, however my wife has rung me to say one of the catalogues has sold the debt to a debt collector who is now chasing for it, is this legal? as I understand it they are not allowed to as long as you have made an effort to pay? will be ringing immediate financial when I get home to see what is happening but would like some advice first, thanks

Hi all, Glad to be here. I'm a long time browser and a new user. This forum has gave me great ideas in the past and I have helped my friends by reading advice on here. Now for my story. I have been with Kensington Finance for over 5 years. I was aware of free ones but thought that it was too much hassle as my debts were surrounding me. I was not thinking clearly and wanted a quick way out. In fact, I got referred to them by someone I knew. He said that they are good, no hassles blah, blah blah. Like a naive person, I arranged a DMP with them. They put me on a DMP on £90 a month (£49 paid to 3 creditors and £41 for their 'management' fees). I agreed and forgot about them. Currently I don't work. Ironically I'm studying to become an accountant. lol. Before I was working with computers and did a degree in Multimedia systems. Just last week, I got a wake up call from one DMP company. Someone called me up and managed to obtain my credit history. She told me that I have £8500 debt (with 3 creditors), which will take me about 12 years to pay off on my current plan, and was trying to sell me an IVA. I simply told her that I'm not working and therefore I probably won't be eligible. I simply put the phone down. I wanted to check how much debt I had left. Originally I had just under £11,000 debt and it doesn't take long to work out that only £2,500 has been paid off so far. Since that time I have paid Kensington Finance £2460 (£41 x 12 months x 5 years) in management fees which could have easily been paid towards the debts if I went for the free one. After that call, I called up StepChange and decided to go with them. They phoned me on Monday 02 June and set up a DMP with me. They worked out that £102 a month is reasonable for me and I should be debt free in 6 years 4 months, if my situation don't change. Today I phoned up Kensington Finance to cancel and explained my reasons why. They said that we will only charge you £10 in management fees. They also said that changing the DMP over to StepChange might cause bother to creditors and they might hassle you again so stick with us. Under the new plan it will take you 6 years 9 months to be debt free in my current situation. So what I want to know is that if any body had problems changing over? Will it cause problems with the creditors and for me? Should I stick with Kensington Finance as they have my details or send the paperwork back to Stepchange to get the DMP started? Sorry for long post. Any other advise gladly welcomed.

Hi, I'll keep the back-story brief but having got into a spiral of ever increasing debt during some incredibly turbulent times for my wife and I in terms of employment I found myself 5 years ago in a situation where I had no job, had lost vast amounts of money in two failed businesses and pretty much had to start over. All through the initial problems I had needed to maintain my credit rating as I worked in Financial Services* which foolishly meant I borrowed ever more to keep up with payments. By the time the businesses went and I was unemployed I owed a stack of money with no means to repay and, having taken advice I booked to go bankrupt. On the day I was due in court I couldn't go through with it. I had found a job, albeit on less than half my previous earnings, and wanted to try and sort it out so entered into a dmp with CCCS. This lasted for about 3 months before I realised I just couldn't afford it and so the dmp failed (by this time early 2010). Since then I have, I'm embarrassed to say, kind of done the ostrich thing in the hope that I could keep the creditors at bay until such time as I could afford to make regular payments that would be enough to make a serious dent in what I owed. Between then and now I have changed jobs four times, each time in order to chase higher earnings and have, since last summer, finally been in a role that I can settle into for the long term and offers some stability in earnings. Prior to this I have been so wary of getting another dmp going only for it to possibly fail. However, I have just received a CCJ claim form for one of my debts and, having got over the panic, I am going to use this as the kick up the backside I needed to sort my finances out once and for all (it's about time!) so would appreciate any help and advice that can be offered here, especially as I understand I need to move quickly with the CCJ. Here's a summary of what I owe. Some of these debts have always been maintained, either because they are priority debts, or in joint names, as my wife has, until recently, always worked in financial services and so had to protect her own credit rating. Joint NRAM Mortgage £251k (never been in arrears) Joint NRAM Together loan £28k (never been in arrears) HP, my car £3,000 (was in arrears but renegotiated a few years ago, vital for work no arrears) HP, my wife's car £4,000 (never in arrears, vital for work) Student Loan c£4k, (was being taken from salary but just switched to direct debit as within two years of paying off - standard SLC practice) Catalogue account in my name, balance of c£1k, all up to date (essential purchases for the house when money has been tight). Bank loan in wife's name, circa £4k (never in arrears) Credit card for £10k, in default, now owned by DCA (showing on credit file as such), originally opened Jan 2008. Bank loan £2k, in default, still owned by bank started April 2007 Credit card £8k, in default, now owned by DCA originally opened Feb 2007 Overdraft £2,5k, in default, now owned by DCA Credit card £5k, in default, now owned by DCA, originally opened July 2003 We also owe about £750 in service charges to the management company who run the estate we live on. The CCJ is for the overdraft. What I'm going round in circles with now is what I'm supposed to do next. From my research it seems I should be putting together a budget plan (which I have done) and need to submit this for the CCJ and at the same time to my other creditors with a view to beginning payments to all of them on a pro-rata basis. Is this right? I have been offered £1,500 by my sister who said I should offer this to the DCA in f&f settlement for the overdraft but from what I've read that would be frowned upon by the courts and I'm thinking if the others see this happening they'll all try and get a lump sum which I won't have (although it is a very generous offer, £1,500 is all my sister has available). The thing that is really confusing me is how will the joint debts be viewed? Will I been deemed to have been giving some creditors preference by keeping up payments on the Together loan, the HP etc? My wife needs to maintain her credit rating for work reasons so will we be allowed to maintain payments on the joint debts and anything in her name? Will we be allowed to keep our cars? We haven't the money to buy other cars and would lose both of our jobs without them. I am also struggling with the budget planner as some of my income is from non guaranteed bonus. I'm guessing the courts/creditors won't just disregard the bonus so how will they calculate my disposable income? These are just the things I can think of right now, I'm sure I'm missing loads of other stuff. Sorry that this has been a long post but if anyone has not yet given up reading and can give me some advice I would appreciate it more than I could say. It's been a long few years and we've got so used to this all hanging over us that it feels like a relief to be finally doing something to sort it but I'm still having sleepless nights trying to figure out the solution! Thanks for your time. AT *No offence to any investment bankers out there but I probably should add that when I say we worked in Financial Services we weren't anything to do with the City.... I had a local mortgage brokers serving local homebuyers/owners in the Midlands and my wife was a branch based retail banking employee who lost her job when staff numbers were cut.

:???:hi i am new here and found this site via yahoo my problem is this i have accumulated debits over the past few years which now total in the region of £32k stupid i know but i thought that i could clear them by keeping up with payments an act which i now know was futile things came to a head last week when our mobile phones were switched off and i started to receive calls from the various card companies that i owe money to my debit is roughly made up of the following £ 8,000 credit card, £5,500 personal loan, £1,900 overdraft all with lloyds £4,800 mbna £3,500 tesco £4,000 egg £2,000 virgin £3,00 halifax up until this month i have not missed a payment on the personal loan (been running for 3 years with 2 left) and have made more than the minimum payements on the cards. but i now reliase my outgoings far outway my income and i am at my wits end whilst speaking to a call centre from lloyds last week they mentioned the credit consumer council and payplan and suggested i contacted them for assistance i tried both on line and they both appear to have advise a reduced payment plan and that i should open a new bank account and have my wages paid in i am in the process of doing this but have found it hard to find a bank not linked i applied to natwest and then found out they are linked to rbs i have now been accepted by the co op who appear to be linked to no one i have stopped my wages going in for next thurs but i am really scared about the backlash from lloyds i still have a mortage with them and intend on trying to pay it over the counter until my new account is up and runnning im i doing the right thing part of me feels it is dishonest and then the other part feels angry that they(lloyds) have allowed me to continue building up debit with them i have been a customer for over 20 years any advice would be most welcome and helpful Thanks Mark:???:

First of all hello, just recently found the forum. Oh, I have been so so silly. I bought a caravan on HP in 2008 over 60 months, last year I sold the caravan and didn't get enough for it to pay off all the loan. I know now that I shouldn't have done this, that I could have let them take it back as I'd paid half the loan. I feel so stupid, but I really didn't know this, and I didn't realise I couldn't sell it on either. I've made such a big mistake. I have never defaulted on the loan payments, I'm still just about managing to pay everything I owe (there are other debts too) but it's tough as I'm a single widowed mum with two kids and I"m a full time student, so just about manage to meet payments by using my student loan etc too. If anyone has any advice how best to manage this and get myself out of this pickle I'd appreciate it. I'm a bit scared now I know I could be prosecuted for selling the caravan with outstanding hp, I have no idea where it is now.

I've just had the forms from NatWest for PPI on loans going back as far as 10 years. I'm a little confused as I was told (by NatWest) that there was a time limit of 6 years on making these claims. There are a number of reasons why I believe I'm eligible to reclaim the PPII was told repeatedly that not taking PPI meant I was more likely to be refused a loan My employment over that period changed between employed and self-employed, the staff who completed my loan application knew this and didn't imform me that this would mean I might not be covered by the PPI A staff member told me to always put 'employed' as my employment status even though I changed between statuses & advised during one application I would soon be changing employment status - they didn't mention any of the implications regarding self-employment I have a number of debts outstanding with NatWest that I am paying in an informal debt management arrangement as well as a number of debts with other providers. My NatWest current account has been closed in so far as I can no longer use it. However it is open in the sense that I can still use the sort code and acc number to make payments to pay off the overdraft I had when I closed it to begin paying off my debts in an arrangement. What I'd like to know is: Can NatWest force me to use the money to pay debts I have with them or can I request they pay me by cheque? (I have debts with other companies so I would be required to allocate the money equally between them if I was to use it on my debts) Am I best giving all the reasons why I think I was mis-sold or just to stick to one and keep my answers on the form brief (they're a bit of an essay currently!) Thanks in advance.

Hi, I recently contacted CFO Lending with regard to a total outstanding debt of £800 that i am struggling to repay. They have offered to let me pay the debt off over a period of four months which initailly i was pleased with. However these payments are still too high for me to afford and I think there may be a way for me to dispute these high payments? Does anyone have any experience of dealing with CFO Lending or any other options available to me? I am prepared to pay off the debt but only at comfortable payments that i can afford. Any help is much appreciated. Thank you!

Hi,I have been reading a lot of info on this forum and wondered if I could get some advice on my situation? I have been in a DMP with pay plan since 2006, never missed a payment which I currently pay £300 per month and have significantly reduced my debts by 60% but still owe £20K. I have now been made redundant so this month have only paid £100 as I have only been paid for one week and will not receive my redundancy pay and notice pay until April. I really want to try and sort these debts once and for all as i do not know how long it will take me to find another job and cannot continue to pay the full amount with no income only my redundancy money to live of so I am thinking of ofering full and final settlements? This is what I have done so far: I have checked my experian credit report and none of the debts are showing, they all defaulted and fell of, the last one disappeared February. Interesting though yesterday when I ordered my report my score was 0!!! today I re checked and I had a score of 964, any ideas why from one extreme to the other?? I only had PPi on one flexi loan which I claimed back I have sent a CCA of yesterday to all, not sure what will come back. I am thinking this may help with negotiating a setlement The debts are as follows: Link financial 2 ex MBNA credit cards £9K CCa sent for both Barclays ex Egg £3K cca sent Robinson way and been round the houses but ex HSBC 2 bank accounts £800 approx and one credi card £2K cca sent for credit card Nat west/mint cc £2.5K cca sent Moorgate ex marks and spencer credit card £1K cca sent I informed pay plan and they are going to call me in April to discuss options bu at the moment the creditors will receive the lower payment and will not have been informed. I am not sure if I should write to them and inform them of the situation now or wait until I have received responses to the cca request. Also if I write to them now I need to send them an updated incone and expenditure list which will make no sense as my income has gone to zero and my expenditure is the same. Do I need to tell them what my redundancy package is?? Any info much appreciated and sorry for the long message!! Thank you