My first post on here but this site has been a great support over the past few years. So, I thought I'd put into just a few words of our story.
My wife and I entered into the IVA in July 2008 with a debt of just over £100k. The scenario which forced us into the IVA; reckless spending, borrowing on top of borrowing and ignoring all the warning signs. To say the next 6 years was a struggle would be an understatement but it certainly showed us the value of money. A harsh lesson learned but one which will definitely serve us well in the future.
We used Debt Free Direct who were great until it came to the end. We made our final payment in January 2014 and we knew it would take a number of weeks before we received our completion certificate. We waited and waited until our patience began to run out.
July 2014 we were told it could 6 months for the paperwork to be completed. August, the same answer. September, we were told it could take 6-8 months. October came and went but still nothing but vague answers and hollow apologies. Eventually, after strongly worded complaints, threats of legal action and an email to their CEO, we received our paperwork.
HURRAY!!!! We've finally done it. Bottle of the good stuff ready to be popped, stress level ready to be dropped and we can start to be rebuild our life. Right? nope, sadly not.
Our credit files then started to get entries popping up left, right and centre. Incorrect default dates & incorrect account numbers causing the problems.
No worries though, we'd just send the appropriate paperwork to the respective lenders and wait for them to correct the info. Right? nope. Despite all paperwork being sent, they then send amendments to the CRA's to mark our debts as Settled. This is correct of course but the default date of the IVA was July 2008 so they should have all dropped off our credit files.
We make further calls to the lenders in the hope of getting their errors corrected. What we end up doing is explaining to their trained staff how IVA's, CRA's and default dates work. We're promised that their errors will be corrected, we're provided with service levels..."give us a week and it will be processed" they say. A week passes so we call back but nothings happened, not even a work task. We refer them to our call the week before only to be told " we don't provide such short service levels on these matters" and "we're just trying to jump the queue". Wow, this is awesome. I love being accused of lying. We then do what we have to do, and that's log another complaint. "you'll have to write in or email your complaint, I can't log it" they say. Crikey, the FCA must have changed their complaint handling guidelines whilst I was on the phone. We then have to give a quick lesson on complaints to the trained staff member. We're assured that my comments will be referred to the complaints team. At this point I have lost all confidence so I email their CEO who rings back the next day. Great, we're finally moving. Right? errr, no sorry please go straight to jail, do not pass go or collect £200.00. The promised complaint was not logged or recorded. So we've had to go over the same details, for the umpteenth time.
So here we are in January 2015, some 12 months after our final payment and we're fighting every single day to get our credit files sorted out. I dread the day when my phone bill arrives so I'll make sure I'm seated when I open the envelope.
Experian have been great as have Call Credit. Equifax on the other hand are simply dreadful. Terrible customer service and even worse attention to detail. Irrespective of all the calls, emails, complaints and poor service; when the day comes when my credit file is clean that will be the day when we can finally say
HURRAY!!!! We finally did it and we can finally pop that bottle [:)]
So, there's our little story. Reading it back it looks very doom and gloom and off putting for anyone looking at entering into an IVA. I'm sure not everyone experiences these issues so if anyone's reading this and thinking about entering into an IVA, please don't let this sway your decision. I just wanted to get this off my chest. I guess you could call it therapy. Thanks for reading
