Hello all!
A couple of months ago I had started posting on another forum with a view to getting some guidance about alternatives to what had become a crippling £400 p/m DMP via CCCS. When on that site I was guided here via a private message from another friendly user. I had serious and disappointing misgivings early on about the other site when one of my postings was extensively edited and censored without any justification and without any private message received from the editing (or any other) moderator. I didn’t kick up a fuss or comment to moderators but it didn’t inspire any confidence as a new member of the site. My transgression was to mention by name another forum (that I wasn’t a member of) and the title of a thread (I didn’t paste any links) on there that mentioned an ID theft situation similar to one I had encountered.
Ahem! Anyhow! After having read a lot of threads and postings both here and elsewhere, I’d like to run my situation by you. I’ll try to make it not too long-winded!
The debts are thus:
Credit card
Capital One
Start date: Feb 2005
Current balance approx. £4,000
Last "full" payment (i.e. within their stipulated minimum): Sep 2010 (approx).
On arrangement -- Last payment via CCCS: Dec 2011
Default notice issued Sep 2010.
Status: default
Notes: [higher, now unsustainable] payment through CCCS accepted (£400 a month pro-rata across all creditors)
Credit card
Halifax
Start date: Oct 2005
Current balance approx. £7,000
Last "full" payment: Sep 2010 (approx).
On arrangement -- Last payment via CCCS: Dec 2011
Default notice issued April 2011.
Status: default
Notes: Getting hassle from Moorcroft (who have not bought the debt -- they just say I have to negotiate repayment through them, even though they know that Halifax have been receiving payments from me)
Credit card
Lloyds TSB Bank plc
Start date: Jan 2004
Current balance approx. £13,000
Last "full" payment: Sep 2010 (approx).
On arrangement -- Last payment via CCCS: Dec 2011
Default notice issued Nov 2010.
Status: default
Notes: Various hassle from MHA Collections, BLS Collections. Eventually accepted part of £400 pro-rata payment through CCCS for time being, i.e. hassling/threatening letters stopped.
Credit card
MBNA
Start date: June 2003
Current balance approx. £5,000
Last "full" payment: Sep 2010 (approx).
On arrangement -- Last payment via CCCS: Dec 2011
Default notice issued March 2011.
Status: default
Notes: have gone very quiet after initial kicking and screaming and heaping on of extortionate interest.
Credit card
Citibank
Start date: Oct 2005
Current balance approx. £4,000
Last "full" payment: Sep 2010 (approx).
Was being paid via CCCS until Nov 2011.
Moved to Opus in October 2010 and CCCS transferred payments from Citibank to Opus automatically. (I should have stopped them in their tracks but was less clued-up then)
Notes: On receiving letter from Cabot re. purchase of Opus account, told CCCS to stop payment. Sent Cabot CCA request in October; no CCA yet forthcoming; payment currently withheld from them.
Status: (not sure whether a default notice has been issued)
Credit card
RBS Mint
Start date: March 2000
Current balance approx. £5,000
Last "full" payment: Sep 2010 (approx).
On arrangement -- Last payment via CCCS: Dec 2011
Default notice issued Nov 2010.
Notes: They went quiet once they started receiving part of £400 pro-rata via CCCS
Credit card
Sainsbury's
Start date: June 2004
Current balance approx. £7,000
Last "full" payment: Sep 2010 (approx).
On arrangement -- Last payment via CCCS: Dec 2011
Default notice issued Feb 2011.
All of my debts are credit cards and in Summer 2010 found I couldn’t sustain the minimum payments to creditors and started a DMP with CCCS. This sort of got the creditors off my back but I still get periodic hassle and letters. The £400 paid via CCCS each month has of the beginning of December 2011 become unaffordable and I gave a £100 payment for December and cancelled my direct debit with them -- I expect the letters from the creditors who will receive a lot less of the pro-rata payments to start flooding in.
The thought of paying impoverishing amounts each month (more than my rent) for 12+ years into a bottomless pit of debt and having a very restrictive life of serfdom for that time is not appealing. I have no mortgage, no car, no assets. Practically everything in my rented flat is second-hand hand-me-downs, from TV, sofa, fridge, bed down to cutlery and crockery! I have no borrowing/credit cards etc. with my current account bank thankfully.
CCCS were a good initial help for the 18 months or so I’ve been with them, but I feel they’ll be rather inflexible when it comes to going along the UE route. They also want you to have a completely impoverished life with maybe £8 a month to spend on yourself for non-essentials – like maybe half a pint of beer and a Cadbury’s Fudge for yourself once a week for being a good compliant bank-coffer-stuffing little girl/boy to numb to pain. I’m not into flashy clothes, furniture (see above) or gadgets (happy with my 6-year-old Nokia “nPhone”), but near enough poverty in abject submission to banks with their privatised profits and socialised, taxpayer-funded losses makes for an all-round nasty stench. And a bit of financial breathing space would be nice, even if only to stash money for eventual Full and Finals for the enforceable ones.
One rather daft and probably irrelevant question I have to sign off with: if an account is sold to a DCA, where the OC has piled on masses of interest and charges (e.g. the Lloyds and Sainsbury’s ones), can you then get the charges and interest taken off by the DCA that has purchased the debt -- this in the case of a debt being enforceable? Probably getting ahead of myself now!
Off now to send off the CCA requests and buy a nice new file to start slotting the letters into. Having read through a few of the diaries, I get the rather pleasant feeling that 2012 is going to be a year where I stop dreading the arrival of the post each day, and where a day stops being either a good one or a bad one because of which letters arrive ... wouldn’t we all have loved to know what we know now five years or so ago!
Many thanks to all and especially Niddy and the moderators and site team for a truly welcoming, friendly, non-berating place!
Pip
A couple of months ago I had started posting on another forum with a view to getting some guidance about alternatives to what had become a crippling £400 p/m DMP via CCCS. When on that site I was guided here via a private message from another friendly user. I had serious and disappointing misgivings early on about the other site when one of my postings was extensively edited and censored without any justification and without any private message received from the editing (or any other) moderator. I didn’t kick up a fuss or comment to moderators but it didn’t inspire any confidence as a new member of the site. My transgression was to mention by name another forum (that I wasn’t a member of) and the title of a thread (I didn’t paste any links) on there that mentioned an ID theft situation similar to one I had encountered.
Ahem! Anyhow! After having read a lot of threads and postings both here and elsewhere, I’d like to run my situation by you. I’ll try to make it not too long-winded!
The debts are thus:
Credit card
Capital One
Start date: Feb 2005
Current balance approx. £4,000
Last "full" payment (i.e. within their stipulated minimum): Sep 2010 (approx).
On arrangement -- Last payment via CCCS: Dec 2011
Default notice issued Sep 2010.
Status: default
Notes: [higher, now unsustainable] payment through CCCS accepted (£400 a month pro-rata across all creditors)
Credit card
Halifax
Start date: Oct 2005
Current balance approx. £7,000
Last "full" payment: Sep 2010 (approx).
On arrangement -- Last payment via CCCS: Dec 2011
Default notice issued April 2011.
Status: default
Notes: Getting hassle from Moorcroft (who have not bought the debt -- they just say I have to negotiate repayment through them, even though they know that Halifax have been receiving payments from me)
Credit card
Lloyds TSB Bank plc
Start date: Jan 2004
Current balance approx. £13,000
Last "full" payment: Sep 2010 (approx).
On arrangement -- Last payment via CCCS: Dec 2011
Default notice issued Nov 2010.
Status: default
Notes: Various hassle from MHA Collections, BLS Collections. Eventually accepted part of £400 pro-rata payment through CCCS for time being, i.e. hassling/threatening letters stopped.
Credit card
MBNA
Start date: June 2003
Current balance approx. £5,000
Last "full" payment: Sep 2010 (approx).
On arrangement -- Last payment via CCCS: Dec 2011
Default notice issued March 2011.
Status: default
Notes: have gone very quiet after initial kicking and screaming and heaping on of extortionate interest.
Credit card
Citibank
Start date: Oct 2005
Current balance approx. £4,000
Last "full" payment: Sep 2010 (approx).
Was being paid via CCCS until Nov 2011.
Moved to Opus in October 2010 and CCCS transferred payments from Citibank to Opus automatically. (I should have stopped them in their tracks but was less clued-up then)
Notes: On receiving letter from Cabot re. purchase of Opus account, told CCCS to stop payment. Sent Cabot CCA request in October; no CCA yet forthcoming; payment currently withheld from them.
Status: (not sure whether a default notice has been issued)
Credit card
RBS Mint
Start date: March 2000
Current balance approx. £5,000
Last "full" payment: Sep 2010 (approx).
On arrangement -- Last payment via CCCS: Dec 2011
Default notice issued Nov 2010.
Notes: They went quiet once they started receiving part of £400 pro-rata via CCCS
Credit card
Sainsbury's
Start date: June 2004
Current balance approx. £7,000
Last "full" payment: Sep 2010 (approx).
On arrangement -- Last payment via CCCS: Dec 2011
Default notice issued Feb 2011.
All of my debts are credit cards and in Summer 2010 found I couldn’t sustain the minimum payments to creditors and started a DMP with CCCS. This sort of got the creditors off my back but I still get periodic hassle and letters. The £400 paid via CCCS each month has of the beginning of December 2011 become unaffordable and I gave a £100 payment for December and cancelled my direct debit with them -- I expect the letters from the creditors who will receive a lot less of the pro-rata payments to start flooding in.
The thought of paying impoverishing amounts each month (more than my rent) for 12+ years into a bottomless pit of debt and having a very restrictive life of serfdom for that time is not appealing. I have no mortgage, no car, no assets. Practically everything in my rented flat is second-hand hand-me-downs, from TV, sofa, fridge, bed down to cutlery and crockery! I have no borrowing/credit cards etc. with my current account bank thankfully.
CCCS were a good initial help for the 18 months or so I’ve been with them, but I feel they’ll be rather inflexible when it comes to going along the UE route. They also want you to have a completely impoverished life with maybe £8 a month to spend on yourself for non-essentials – like maybe half a pint of beer and a Cadbury’s Fudge for yourself once a week for being a good compliant bank-coffer-stuffing little girl/boy to numb to pain. I’m not into flashy clothes, furniture (see above) or gadgets (happy with my 6-year-old Nokia “nPhone”), but near enough poverty in abject submission to banks with their privatised profits and socialised, taxpayer-funded losses makes for an all-round nasty stench. And a bit of financial breathing space would be nice, even if only to stash money for eventual Full and Finals for the enforceable ones.
One rather daft and probably irrelevant question I have to sign off with: if an account is sold to a DCA, where the OC has piled on masses of interest and charges (e.g. the Lloyds and Sainsbury’s ones), can you then get the charges and interest taken off by the DCA that has purchased the debt -- this in the case of a debt being enforceable? Probably getting ahead of myself now!
Off now to send off the CCA requests and buy a nice new file to start slotting the letters into. Having read through a few of the diaries, I get the rather pleasant feeling that 2012 is going to be a year where I stop dreading the arrival of the post each day, and where a day stops being either a good one or a bad one because of which letters arrive ... wouldn’t we all have loved to know what we know now five years or so ago!
Many thanks to all and especially Niddy and the moderators and site team for a truly welcoming, friendly, non-berating place!
Pip
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