Big problems with CCCS -being dumped

[huskysnowdog]

Hi to everyone

I am a new member & I am very worried about my current DMP with CCCS.

Basically I have had a DMP for a few years now. I have not missed any payments & also I have kept to all the rules in the agreement.

I had a review with them & increased my monthly payment from £100 a month to £178.

I was only able to do this because of extra duties at work, but I thought that 78% increase in payments was a good gesture on my part. I have a disabled wife who can't work & I am struggling but I felt my offer was all I could afford.

I received a snotty email, advising me that they are not happy with the increase,even though they accepted it initially with no problem at all and unless I can now repay my debts over 10 years, they are basically dumping me. There is no way I can do this.

I wrote a letter of complaint & I did say that I felt that this was a case of direct discrimination & possibly disability discrimination and that there is nothing at all in the CCCS/ client agreement that states that DMPs are subject to a set period of time. My original paperwork from them states "we will never ask you to pay more than you can afford".

The reply to my letter was very unfriendly & they said that debt recovery in general has now changed & that they intend to stop my DMP & throw me back to my creditors unless I can pay far more monthly.A figure of £400 was suggested which is totally impossible.

 

I have said that I am going to a solicitor, as they appear to be in breach of their own T & C s .They did not seem to be particularly bothered about that either.

Have they been taken over or are they now being controlled by one of the nastier creditors like LTSB or RBS ?

 

Today, a friend at work has had the same message from them by email.

She has had a review and agreed a small increase in her payments.

They told her it was fine, then lost her new budget, tried to say she had never sent it, then, when challenged with the original email that they sent confirming it,they said "Oh well, we have got it but it is not enough so this is the last year that we will be supporting you."

 

I know that most people do think that CCCS is wonderful & complaints against them are probably rare but I am appalled at what they are doing to me & to my friend.

 

It then occurred to me that maybe this "dumping long standing clients" is more widespread than just me.

 

I found this brilliant Forum & I would like to know if anyone else has had the same treatment as me.

 

If so, have you taken it further & what was the outcome ?

 

My disabled wife also has a DMP with them. They haven't started on her as yet but I guess it is only a matter of time.

 

I have contacted Payplan to see about transferring my DMP & they are arranging an appointment for me next week.

 

However I really feel I want to take the CCCS matter a lot further.

 

Thanks guys for any info on similar experiences.

[Guest Old_andrew2018]

Can suggest you look at debt questions forum, one of their experts is Simon Wiggins who I feel will be able to advise you

[cerberusalert]

Moved to Debt Forum

[Pinky69]

Who says CCCS are wonderful? Far from it. They are paid by the banks and are only there to collect your money on the banks behalf, in spite of appearances to the contrary. Your complaint will fall on deaf ears. Their admin is a shambles and if a plan falls through you are on your own - they do not want to know. There is nothing they do that you cannot do for yourself. I was with CCCS for 5 years and came out of the plan in 2007. I CCAd all my creditors - I owed £48000 - and none of them had enforceable agreements. Today I am debt free and I would have been paying through CCCS for years.

[WelshMam2009]

Just to reassure you Husky Snow Dog...you can agree DMP's yourself and don't need a third party to do it for you although, I appreciate that some people like the "comfort" of this.

 

I actually approached National Debtline first and wasn't happy with their advice so went it alone. You should never be forced to pay more than you can afford and I'm not sure what CCCS are playing at. There are generally accepted levels of expenditure for housekeeping, tv licence etc etc and you should only be paying surplus income on a pro-rata basis.

 

I did find that National Debtline had a great brochure which gave you these figures and it may be as well to complete an income/expenditure form to see if yours or CCCS's calculations are more realistic.

 

I'm guessing that you haven't sent off a CCA request to any of your creditors? How many agreements do you have, who with and when were they taken out?

 

If you're happier going with PayPlan then please ignore my suggestion to sort out a DMP by yourself as it can be really stressful!!

 

Best of luck!!

 

PS...I'm now in an almost similar position to Pinky after stopping my DMP and sending off CCA's to my creditors. Just waiting for outcome on Egg agreements!! Whilst none of my creditors have "written off" my debts, and they still exist, they are uneforceable and hence, I am not paying for them.

[veryweary]

I left CCCS after being with them for 5 years, and took contol of all of my payments myself. Was very ill when this happened, but it was considerably easier than I thought it would be.

 

When they dump you, they will give you a detailed list with name, contact nos, addresses of all your creditors. I took the oppurtunity when I left CCCS to make enquiries on the enorcability of my alleged accounts, be sednign some CCA requests, and now have 5 accounts where I make no payments and more possibly to follow.

 

They are initially helpful when you're desperate and not familiar with your rights and they don't charge for their service, But not much use if a creditor or DCA gets nasty and threatens court action or charging orders. They just tell you to accept it all including unfair charges and keep paying them.

 

They used to have a ceiling of minimum of £100 per month to make it viable as a charity to handle the admin of your repayments for you. Sounds like the credit industry is biting them in the rear end. Typical that the greed of creditors , always wanting more , makes them bite the hand that feeds them. They truly deserve it when people get fed up, find out thru sites like this that agreements aren't always enforceable, and stop paying them altogether.

 

As a charity I can't see the ombudsman being relevant, but you could perhaps write a letter of complaint to someone on the board.

 

It would be very interesting to see what sort of reply you got.

[Snowingagain]

I tried CCCs and National Debtline but found them a bit wishy washy. Thankfully I found this site.

[creditcardmug]

CCCS are very useful in the first instance, assisting you with your I/E, letters to creditors, however once this has been done, i advise everyone to back out, and do everything on your own.

 

As you may be aware, as pinky says they are paid by the banks, and ultimately have no interest in you.

 

Now, once you are free from CCCS, you are in a much better position, you can selectively send CCA requests to each of your creditors, and if they don't comply within the required timeframe then you stop paying......in short YOU are now in control, not them

[huskysnowdog]

Thank you all very much for the replies.

I can see that I am not alone in the problems with CCCS.

Since I posted the original message, my wife has now also had an email from them stating that if she also does not up her payments to repay the debts in 10 years or less by the time of her next DMP review they "may have to end the DMP, as bankruptcy is the recommended option".

As she is very ill and has been since 2002, there is no way she would comtemplate this.We live in a very small community where people are as good as put in the stocks if they have any scandal attached to them

My debts total 55000 & they are all credit cards apart from one. The actual agreements are well over 8 - 10 years old.Most are from the late 1990s or early 2000s

I think I should be seriously considering CCA. I guess it is just taking that initial step.

None of my creditors ever contact me about the debts apart from Restons, who I have had some real "run ins" with.

To get free of the problems or at least to ease them would be brilliant.

Many thanks again

[hatesdebt]

As the debts are so old, it's unlikely any of them will have a compliant agreement, so cca' ing them would be advisable.

 

As stated cccs are bank funded - wolves looking after the sheep??

 

Many of these debt help companies (I think) can be dubious, they nearly always advise dmp's or Iva's, as that's how they make money.

You can do a dmp alone, why pay them..

 

You'll get lots of good help on here, so go for it......

[irishcol]

Hi all,

 

I have just joined this site after finding out that I have just been dumped by CCCS without any notice. I never missed any payments and I regularly update my budget. I began with them a few years back (2006) and recently discovered I had a debt that had not been included. They threatend to end my DMP but I said I did not know about it, so they asked me to send the creditor a letter asking for my credit agreement. I never heard back from the creditor and informed CCCS of this, but I assume due to this they have cancelled my agreement.

 

I need help!!! I have no details of my creditors as CCCS held all of this info- a lot of my debts are very old (5 years plus) and I keep reading about CCA request. Please can someone advise me what this is and whether or not I can do this and then potentially manage my own debt plan?

 

Thanks in advance to anyone who can help!!

[Pinky69]

irishcol, start your own thread so it doesn't get mixerd up with someone else's. The New Thread button is at the top of the threads on the left hand side.

 

CCCS will send you a list of the names and addresses of your creditors on request. You can manage your own debts without a DMP and you can send CCAs to check on the enforceability of the agreements. For advice start a new thread for each agreement so they don't get mixed up.

[veryweary]

CCCS should send you a list detailing all your creditors , their addresses and contact nos, and you should have your recent CCCS statements showing amounts technically outstanding. If they don't send it, phone or write CCCS and ask them for it.

 

A CCA request is a letter sent to whoever is taking your payments, be it original creditor or DCA, you can find the letter in the sites' template letter section. You need to send it enclosing a £1 postal order , don't sign the letter, use capitals or something and send by recorded delivery so you can prove it was sent.

 

It asks the creditor to provide you with a copy of your credit agreement. After 12+2 days if they don't supply one , you can put the account into dispute and then withold payments until they comply if they ever do. It's always your decison whether to continue payments or not.

 

If they do come back with something claiming it's an agreement, start a seperate thread for each account , scan the agreement minus any identifying personal details and post it up for people to advise you further, as it may not be compliant, due to missing prescribed terms etc.

 

while you get all this done , would be an idea to start reading some of the threads on this site to glean more information, as there's a lot of info to take on board.

 

And lastly don't worry it will all be fine. Lots of us have moved from CCCS to managing our own affairs and survived. You'll get all the help you need on here:)

[irishcol]

Thanks veryweary! I have alrady emailed CCCS telling them of my disgust to close my agreement without any notice! I have also asked them for all of the details in order to pay my creditors for this month.

 

I will make a start to this and have a read through other posts and let you know how I get on.

 

Thanks again xxxx

[Pinky69]

irishcol has started her own thread.