How were you dealt with at the beginning

[Rob.g]

Well now we've now finished our iva I was wondering how others were dealt ...
I would firstly like to say , I wished I'd known about the forum !

I remember 6 yrs ago , we had increasing debt , mainly c cards through botched business ideas gone wrong !
We were paying everything each month , was difficult but we were doing it but struggling ...

And then the struggle gets worse .
We contacted a one of the debt agencies , who put us onto a broker I guess you could call them ...
we went through everything , was told our options , but I must say , and now feel we were pushed into as words etc to force your hand ...I don't know , maybe if just fealt like that ...

As said. We was not defaulting in any way but was told we need to default !

That was the hardest part , was Also told to max cards out !!!

We started to default to get the process going , Then the hounding on the phone process by creditors then broker put us onto ( SDS ) at the time or arranged us with SDS . then iva was set up and the process started ...

Now ... question ... is that the normal practice would you say from the initial broker company ? As we're not actually defaulting but needed to to get the bell rolling ..
Was quite a scary month or so tbh ..

Would love to know about other people's initial steps to getting there iva going ..
As said , I would liked to have had this info and been able to make our own mind up on who to turn to with the iva. Yes even now it's finished now but the initial process was a scary one ...

[Debt_guru]

Hi,

First i would like to say that getting an IVA set up should be a relief that gets you out of a sticky situation not the other way around. So no, i do not think that what the 'broker' made you experience was how it should have been. Based on the info you have given it does not sound like you had an option. There are lots of debt solutions out there that they should of told you about. You should of had every solution broken down to you then assessed what would of been the best for you. I am sorry you had a bad experience with your IVA.

[kallis3]

Great post Rob.

We were in a DMP initially and then did the IVA with a different company but had no bad experiences. I was fortunate in finding the forum when I did. Didn't pay anything across once we were told it was going ahead. We had our options explained to us and this was 8 years ago.

It was the best thing we ever did and I have never regretted it - made several good friends off forum since then.

[Allywally]

I have to say that making the initial call for help/advice was the hardest part but I soon knew it was the best thing to do! I felt relief at the way I was treated and while the wait for the meeting was awful again the relief at being accepted was brilliant. Am starting year 5 and have to say I have not regretted my decision for a second. Got my life back and can sleep at night.

[Foggy]

I think you were badly advised and maybe even an IVA was not the best way forward. You do not need to default to enter an IVA and purposefully maxing out cards is dubious !

I approached Stepchange initially and found them to be over bearing and very pushy -- I do not respond well to being pushed or rushed into anything, so then spoke to an introducer (can't recall which) who put me in touch with RSM Tenon -- I liked the way they proposed to set things up and went with them (eventually to be transferred to GT).

I had maintained all payments (with increasing difficulty) until I had started the process, then kept back a few months payments as a contingency fund, so only had a few weeks calls from creditors to ride out.

[kallis3]

The first company we approached way back in 2006 asked if we would consider selling our car (it was a Skoda) and then point blank told us that we had too much disposable income to go into the IVA so we did a DMP for a couple of years with them before my stepson suggested Payplan and they couldn't believe what we had been told!

They sorted out the IVA and were pretty good to deal with the whole time. We even ended up having lower monthly payments than on the DMP!

[Lisa Thomas]

I also think it makes a difference if you meet your IP and although I'm bias I think you get more of a personal touch with a smaller firm. It seems from forums comments that with big firms it's luck of the draw who you speak to and they rarely know your case whereas with a small firm you normally will deal with one person from the start.

[kallis3]

To be fair to Payplan, we had several changes of case officer and all were excellent.

[Foggy]

I also think it makes a difference if you meet your IP and although I'm bias I think you get more of a personal touch with a smaller firm. It seems from forums comments that with big firms it's luck of the draw who you speak to and they rarely know your case whereas with a small firm you normally will deal with one person from the start.

I agree that the smaller firms are better in that aspect but don't think you need to actually meet face to face. A lot though is down to keeping lines of communication open and establishing a relationship ---- regarding the relationship as working together, rather than being adversarial. I got on great with both my teams because I wouldn't leave them alone !!

[Rob.g]

Thanks for the inputs to my thread
I felt I had to ask about that with ref our initial ( who you go to )

Thinking back to that , yes , I think were pushed and they obviously knew we were in a vulnerable situation and didn't really know where to turn ...

That's why I said , Finding this forum before would possibly have made better decisions for us ..

Ref to be being told to max out cards then default , and how scary that was for us to be advised to do that was now thinking back at that was bad advice ...

I need to dig out all earlier correspondence to see what that company were called ..

When the iva actually started with SDS , things were pretty self explanatory, we were given the expedeture forms to fill in, land registry documents to sign etc etc ..initial monthly payment did go up a few times .

Then CF took over our iva , and tbh things seemed a little more relaxed , but saying that , we were I think around our 3rd year and were getting on with things ...

With SDS , my car at the time was suffering and needed some big ££££ spending on it , I contacted SDS regarding this and asking fir a payment break ... that took over six months for them to finally make a decision with that ..by that time , the car had gone !!! Then the decision was that I could have a break and would be added to the end of the iva ...

Back with CF , was very friendly with correspondence, and as said , we finally needed a newer car and they permitted us to get finance ..
something I never thought would have been possible but was through a vehicle finance company that does deal with these cases MONEYBARN ...
this again was a life saver as helped me to do my work ....

Still , we can look back at all that now as iva dead and buried.... it was an experience ... Onwards and Upwards