First step Finance - **BANNED DIRECTORS STOLE +£6M**

[sequenci]

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.

 

This is an unsubstantiated claim. They cannot prove that his could be a worse-case scenario. The worse case is 0% debt-wipe. What if all creditors have everything in order AND are not willing to accept any settlements?

 

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

 

Creditors do not usually go straight to legal action, quite often they may pass debts to collections agencies and the like first. Also, the Civil Procedure Rules state very clearly that legal action should be a last-resort and that a potential claimant should demonstrate that they've done all that they reasonably can to get thigns sorted prior to using the legal route

as I understand it they can't, you have put your account in dispute and authorised someone to act on your behalf.

 

They could, theoretically, still use further action. This is actually confirmed in recent case law. The OFT's debt collection guidance supports what you say although your choice of third-party agency should be one which is recognised.

[M'n'M]

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

[Desperate Daniella]

Generally, as Sequenci says, they won't take you straight to court and will pass you round a number of DCAs. They will be reluctant to take you to court if they know they have an unenforceable agreement, or even no agreement.

 

Have you got threads on this forum with your agreements?

 

When an account is put into dispute the charges and interest should stop. My cards have been in dispute for over a year and nothing has been added to the totals for most of them. If a DCA has said only they have the power to stop the interest and charges that is simply not true.

 

It would take an experienced cagger about two minutes to look at an agreement and see if it is enforceable or not. How can it take their "legal" department four months?

 

If you wait long enough and see off the DCAs a lot of companies will offer you a substantial discount. One CAG poster was offered a discount of 65% to settle an account which he accepted - and now wishes he hadn't as the agreement appears to be totally unenforceable. He wasn't on CAG at the time he agreed to settle.

 

Other people have been offered 50% or 35% discounts, but if you settle to pay the whole thing with a DCA you won't get those offers.

 

Some people will be happy to work with FSF, but from the horrors I have read on this thread I would tread very carefully.

 

DD

[M'n'M]

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.

[Desperate Daniella]

Hi M'n'M,

 

It's certainly worth a try, and I wish you luck with it. Whether they accept or not will depend on whether they perceive that this is all they are likely to get out of you.

 

I did try to negotiate reduced payments with my cards before I had ever heard of unenforceable agreements but got told what I was proposing wasn't enough, so it will be interesting to see if they accept your 20%. Please keep us all posted. Personally if any of them agree to settle at 20% I'm sure they'd get a lot of offers to do so from other caggers.

 

If this is what you are doing I do suggest that you stop the arrangement with FSF and hang on to your money to offer your creditors.

 

DD

[Desperate Daniella]

Good afternoon Guests,

 

If you have found this site because you have done a google search on FSF and found us, do let us know if we can help you.

 

DD

[M'n'M]

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.

[M'n'M]

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

[Poor-Credit Borrower]

M'm'M, welcome to this thread. This is the first time I have looked at it since the weekend. You will probably have read my posts, amongst others, by now.

 

I would, on balance, based on what I know now not go with FSF, as the charges ARE or seem to be more than what I first thought. But I have been with them more than 12 months now.

 

Unless you do have a suspicion that some of your debts are unenforceable or could be wiped/out, it may be better to go with a non-fee paying debt management company. As you have rightly said, FSF are not debt management, or that is only a peripheral part of their function, but they do challenge the debt. But you seem to have to pay quite a bit to get any results!

 

As for whether or not it is "correct" to talk about your particular circs in this thread, only you can say - in this, as in any, thread, it can be all too easy for the 'wrong' people viewing the thread to possibly identify you from what you write so it is best to be as 'anonymous' as possible

 

Thanks for the other link you've provided in your latest post, I'll have a look at it now...

[chezney66]

I have taken great interest in reading some of the comments that have come in over the weekend and learnt some useful tips. I can see a lot of people who hopefully I could help in return. I have seen this issue of no creditor payments being made through FSF again but without repeating myself too much, the paying toward a debt you are disputing is completely contradictory.

I see also that the possibility of negotiating one's own settlement figures has been mentioned, which was certainly what I intended to help my family member to achieve when I first embarked on aiding them with their debt...but the sad truth is that we can't afford to pay a settlement figure as, I assume, most people in debt can't. When attempting to get settlement figures I found that I was only being offered the amount with the interest and charges removed, which we still couldn't afford.

I wont say how we went about sorting the debt as I appreciate this is a forum for sharing of opinion and experience but with all my research and endless conversation with various companies I do know a fair bit about this...although with that said I am learning something new every time I come on to this forum.

Thanks Guys

[Desperate Daniella]

Hi M'n'M,

 

Some people welcome others posting on their threads - and others can get a bit testy. Personally, I think it's nice to welcome people and see how things are going for them, and then they can start their own thread if they need to.

 

PCB has been very welcoming to everyone here.

 

I'll have a look at your new thread too.

 

I'm glad you are finding the forum educational, chezney.

 

DD

[Poor-Credit Borrower]

Hi DD, M'n'M, International54 and everyone,

 

FSF have sent me a statement from when I first started with them in early April 2009, think I had made a written or at least telephone request for one. So I don't need to make a formal subject access request now, as I think I have all the details.

 

There was no overt upfront fee I had to pay apart from the "document fee" of £75. The "courier" fee mentioned by international54 was probably another term for this. However, the 8% fee (and this may answer a question you'd asked me 2 or 3 weeks ago, DD) has been deducted from my balance leaving me with a large 'negative' balance. Not saying exactly how much it was but it was over a thousand pounds. I'm not quite sure at what point the 8% fee of one's "confirmed debt" is actually debited from the customer's account - presumably if a debtor has only been with FSF for only, say, 2 weeks I wouldn't have thought 8% of the total debt would be payable on cancellation (but you never know).

 

After my first full payment, the statutory £1.00 for a s77-s78 agreement request was sent to each creditor and deducted from my account. In June, my first 'payday' loan debt was written off, and in August 2009 the second one was written off (due presumably to lack of a signed agreement). I have been charged 25% of the amount that has been written off/eliminated. By the way, I don't know why the "data statutory access request payment" to Capital One is £10 instead of £1.

 

I think, although this is not on the statement to date, that FSF also get 15% of anything paid towards a legitimate debt. Think this is quite a lot in addition to the 8% received towards managing that same debt.

 

However, there is no mention of any money paid or payable towards phone calls, or any legal work done per hour as international54 has cited.

 

Having now paid into the plan for 13 months I am now slightly in credit with FSF. Have now totted up how much has actually gone towards creditors and it is £56 altogether.

 

Does anyone have any further thoughts on this now?

 

Daniella, do you have any space for me to PM you?

 

PCB

Edited April 28, 2010 by Poor-Credit Borrower
trivial addition of an apostrophe

[M'n'M]

PCB, where you say

 

I think, although this is not on the statement to date, that FSF also get 15% of anything paid towards a legitimate debt. Think this is quite a lot in addition to the 8% received towards managing that same debt.

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.

[Poor-Credit Borrower]

 

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.

 

 

Hi M'n'M

 

Thanks for your info about the renegotiation of the debt. Of course, it is unacceptable if the fee you pay them is *more* than the amount you will be saving - and £437 (to use your fictitious figures) is a lot more than £100! The amount in these circumstances should at least be capped at the amount they are saving you, I would have thought.

 

Good luck

PCB

Edited April 30, 2010 by Poor-Credit Borrower
spelling/typo error

[Poor-Credit Borrower]

Hi, just a token quick reply to ask if anyone has had any recent progress on their FSF accounts (either good or bad) and any further views? I'm just going to ring FSF, hopefully today, to ask if there has been any "progress" in the last month.

[prima]

Hi PCB,

 

my freind has spoken with FSF to acknowledge the refund and indeed had a lengthy conversation with a chap in the full & finals dept? she has agreed to send a letter to them giving thouhts on how the service worked for her, she also brought up the fact that she had seen on the internet a mixed bag of comments about fSF, the response was " it is frustrating that some comments on the web are totally wrong, people must either forget what we do or believe the creditors and debt management companies when they tell lies about the service, Our service works,as it has done for you but some creditors really put the frightners on clients, when all they have to do is supply the information requested, our service is the only service acting for the client and not the creditors" at this point my freind asked about the additional charges to which the answer was " what extra charges? there are no extra charges, have you paid any extra charges?" her answer was no. They stayed on the phone for a further 3 minutes or so wishing her well and to stay out of debt! (easier said than done.)

 

In conclusion we can only say as we find, and the service was good, our advice to anybody who has a problem, call them up and ask the questions.

 

PCB you asked how long with FSF, approx 19 months.

 

Hope you get sorted.

 

prima.

[Poor-Credit Borrower]

Hi prima,

 

I think this is a duplicate of, or very similar to, the message that you posted on the debt elimination thread. But I didn't mind reading it again.

 

In the 13 months, and I think 14 monthly payments, that I have been with FSF I have now paid the 8% 'processing' fee of my entire unsecured debt and am now slightly 'in credit' with them, i.e. something is "in the pot". However, little has gone to creditors so far. Their policy is to pay as little as they can get away with to the actual creditors, at first, and then make an offer which is usually about 50%, unless the creditor actually "offers" a settlement figure that is less. On my recent progress call with them, they said it would be quite a number of months before I have enough "in the pot" for them to make offers to creditors, like they did in the case of your creditor, but they will do so in time.

 

I may have owed more in total than your friend, and certainly have more than five creditors. Anyway, it is good that your friend is out of debt now.

 

I think the service could be good, if one has the patience to stay the 'full course' with them, but a lot has to be placed on trust. I agree that there don't seem to be any "extra charges", but I think the advertised charges are a bit steep running at 8% of processing any unsecured debt and then 15% of moneys that are actually paid towards the creditors (and 25% of any that is written off, although that is better than paying the full debt to the creditor).

 

Cheers,

 

PCB

[sequenci]

What would stop a creditor bringing legal action against an individual whilst the money builds up in this pot? Absolutely nothing. I think homeowners should think twice before considering this sort of approach.

 

My 2c

[prima]

Hello Sequenci,

 

If I understand your statement correctly we can answer it as we had this exact situation, if the loan/agreement is correct token payments are made, if the agreement is not correct, the debt is in dispute i think thats what was said, therefore cannot be chased does that sound right?

 

prima

[sequenci]

Hello Sequenci,

 

If I understand your statement correctly we can answer it as we had this exact situation, if the loan/agreement is correct token payments are made, if the agreement is not correct, the debt is in dispute i think thats what was said, therefore cannot be chased does that sound right?

 

prima

 

None of that would actually stop a creditor taking things further should they wish to.

[prima]

they didnt though so?

[sequenci]

they didnt though so?

 

Sorry, I don't understand?

[Poor-Credit Borrower]

Prima, sequenci means that a creditor could take things further even if the debt is written off although they wouldn't necessarily. I think one would have to get an actual letter from the creditor to say that they are not, in fact, going to take things further.

[Rathbone]

First Step Finance is a very expensive debt management service.

Edited May 17, 2010 by Rathbone

[Poor-Credit Borrower]

Rathbone, thank you for your candid account of First Step Finance. Have you or do you know one or more people who have used their services then? I did not know about the "additional monthly administration charge", which is NOT on my statement of fees to them. So that means if someone remains with FSF for 20 months, then they may 100% of the fee (or at least what is left by then)? Sounds crazy!!

 

The sister, or related, business is spelt "Licit Legal", by the way. I started to use them to reclaim bank charges, in 2006, before I knew about the CAG forum.

 

Notice that this is your first post on this forum - welcome to CAG.