Credit card debt help please!

[JustAboutMad]

Hi all,

To cut a long story short, I had a bit of a financial crisis in 2016 and ended up using credit cards to make up the income shortfall for several months. I was juggling it all relatively ok until mid 2017 at which point it began to catch up with me and I missed a few payments with both Barclaycard and MBNA. 3 months I think I missed, they didn't default my credit file, or close the accounts, they just gave me a few late payment markers, stopped me from using the accounts and continued to request the usual payments.

I have continued to pay them every month since then, however I am now out of work and I cannot keep up with the payments. I've so far only missed 1 payment on each of them, so I thought I'd jump straight on here and get some advice before it gets any worse!

Basically, I can't go down the route of any insolvency proceedings because that would interfere with my work role (currently no job, but it would prevent me from getting back into work).

So what are my options for least credit file destruction at this point

And I have sadly been here before, a long time ago now, if I was to do that over, I would have defaulted straight off and followed Niddy's route from the beginning. I'm out of date as far as current legislation goes now, didn't think I needed to keep up funnily enough!

I'm assuming Barclays and MBNA weren't still doing unenforceable contracts in 2013? I would have applied for these cards online.

Basically I've just looked at the balances that were due when I missed the payments in 2017. Barclaycard £10,850, MBNA £8500.

Todays balances Barclaycard £8500, MBNA £6500 (ish)

I've been paying £250 and £200 every month to each of them for over 2 years. Barclays are still charging me about £150 a month, MBNA is charging just over a £100 in interest.

So I've paid around 11k of around 19.5 and at this point I still owe 15k... It's madness. Entirely my own fault for not dealing with it sooner but here I am!

Sorry if this isn't the right thread to start this discussion, and also could find template for debts I will tidy it up if someone can point me in the right direction, it's been a while!

TIA

[Joanna Connolly Solicitors]

Basically I've just looked at the balances that were due when I missed the payments in 2017. Barclaycard £10,850, MBNA £8500.

Todays balances Barclaycard £8500, MBNA £6500 (ish)

I've been paying £250 and £200 every month to each of them for over 2 years. Barclays are still charging me about £150 a month, MBNA is charging just over a £100 in interest.[/LEFT]

So I've paid around 11k of around 19.5 and at this point I still owe 15k... It's madness. Entirely my own fault for not dealing with it sooner but here I am!

Hello

Your timing is good since this week the FCA told credit card providers to review their approach to borrowers who are paying more in interest, fees and charges than they are paying off their balance.

They are also asking creditors to try to come to an agreement without suspending or cancelling the credit card facility.


FCA link > https://www.fca.org.uk/news/press-re...debt-customers

It would certainly help your particular circumstances if MBNA and Barclays did this for you. I know one person who has achieved this with their Nat West credit card.

Ideally I would like to see a day when those fees and charges (not interest) are refunded retrospectively. I can but dream.

Di

[JustAboutMad]

FCA link > https://www.fca.org.uk/news/press-re...debt-customers

It would certainly help your particular circumstances if MBNA and Barclays did this for you. I know one person who has achieved this with their Nat West credit card.

Ideally I would like to see a day when those fees and charges (not interest) are refunded retrospectively. I can but dream.

Di

Thanks Di,

There's a lot of info there for me to read up on. Is anyone on here already knowledgeable on the PD issue? Just reading through it briefly and thinking about it, certainly one of the creditors has increased the interest rate twice since Sep 2018 when I've looked at it. That seems to go directly against the general PD advice that came into effect in March 2018....

Test case anyone?

[Joanna Connolly Solicitors]

I'm assuming Barclays and MBNA weren't still doing unenforceable contracts in 2013? I would have applied for these cards online.

Basically I've just looked at the balances that were due when I missed the payments in 2017. Barclaycard £10,850, MBNA £8500.

Todays balances Barclaycard £8500, MBNA £6500

I wouldn't assume that a credit agreement will be compliant and enforceable just because you applied for it online in 2013.

And many claims are defeated in court (or discontinued beforehand) based on the creditor's failure to comply with all their other statutory duties.

My suggestion is you send a s77-79 CCA Request to each if them (Barclaycard and MBNA) to see what comes back.

If you missed payments in 2017 then maybe these accounts should have been defaulted then? Interest would have been stopped at that point.

Di

[JustAboutMad]

My suggestion is you send a s77-79 CCA Request to each if them (Barclaycard and MBNA) to see what comes back.

If you missed payments in 2017 then maybe these accounts should have been defaulted then? Interest would have been stopped at that point.

Di

I'll send the CCA request and see what comes back. I had 3 consecutive missed payment markers in 2017, they 'suspended use of my cards', then I think I cleared the arrears with a balance transfer. I'm sure I had a conversation with Barclays at the time and said I was struggling due to XYZ (lots going on that year).

Both those cards have been suspended since 2017, but they didn't default me, didn't drop my credit limits & they didn't stop the interest or fees. Probably should have let it continue & made sure they defaulted me, at least then they would have been settled by now!!


I was thinking that the PD rules meant they should have stopped charging interest when I said I was struggling, but it appears that was only a FCA guideline at that time