Negotiating Credit Card Debt

[Buck Futter]

Morning all!

 

I'm after a bit of help as to something which may or may not be possible! I have a Lloyds TSB Platinum Mastercard with a £4000 limit which, needless to say, is maxed out and has been for several years, at least 5 as far as I remember. I have a direct debit set up for the minimum monthly payment and have never failed to make this payment, the problem is that the net effect has done bugger all to reduce the debt so I still have £4k sat there and I'm mapying £79 per month to keep it.

 

Anyway, my wife and I are now expecting our first child. Over the past few year I have cleared thousands of pounds of debt from a reckless youth but this card is still lingering. I am now planning to blitz it, paying £1000 a month for the next 4 months however before I do this I wanted to see if anybody had any advice as to whether I could negotiate the balance down and, if so, how I might go about doing so?

 

As I see it I've probably paid as much as, if not more than my actual debt in interest payments over the years so I thought there may be some scope to negotiate with Lloyds.

 

Any help would be much appreciated!

 

Thanks

[247orbital]

Maybe transfer the balance to another card of 0% for balance transfers and pay it off £350 over 12 months?

 

Credit card company's love people who have large amounts outstanding and only pay the minimum payment,

[Buck Futter]

No, I can get rid of it in 4 months, I just want to get rid of it sooner! I could go through the whole farce of stopping the direct debits, letting it go to debt collectors and then negotiating a settlement but I was hopnig to avoid all that!

 

The question is: do you think the bank will play ball?

[twofoot]

With your payments being up to date you have little chance of negotiating a discount.

[247orbital]

no very doubtful they like to keep good customers like you. See my advice above, switch to the 0% card pay it off that way. Or just pay off the 4k like you said.

[Buck Futter]

Crazy isn't it?!?

[diddydicky]

well the first thing to do is get off a s78 request for the agreement. don't stop payments just yet

 

If you have the money to settle it then i suggest you go out tomorrow and buy a lump of premium bonds with it whilst you find out about the enforceability

 

don't pay until you know you have to pay- you may well find that you can do a deal