Hi,
I wonder if anyone can help me. I am in a repayment agreement with Halifax Card Services and RBS through Justabank, and have been for almost two years now. Whilst RBS have been quite happy to accept our payments, Halifax shifted the goal posts last May. Halifax started adding interest again.
Now I understand why they did this so I dont need any explanations about why. The problem is Justabank and I are waiting for Halifax to default my account so that we can start renegotiating a repayment agreement once my account is sent to Blair, Oliver and Scott. However that was almost 10 months ago.
Since then Halifax are adding interest every month to my account, and as a result, half of my payments are in interest and the rest is going towards what I owe. I keep contacting justbank and they say it is a waiting game but nothing is happening. They have even suggested I need to go into arrears before Halifax will default, but still nothing is happening even though Halifax are charging me 12 pounds every month as well. Now I find that Halifax have dropped my minimum payment to just 1% of my credit balance. It is almost as if Halifax are reluctant to default my account.
I have suggested to Justabank that I should stop paying Halifax but they advised against it. The problem is I have 3.5 years left of my repayment agreement and I will still owe Halifax approx. 5-6,000 pounds by the end of it.
Are you making one payment a month into a DMP, or are you making seperate payments to your creditors?
I think Justabank (Payplan?) are contradicting themselves here by suggesting that you need to go in arrears and then telling you not to stop making payments!
If you stop, then you will go into arrears and they will then default you. You will, however, get the letter and the phone calls again.
Personally, I would speak to Justabank again and tell them exactly how you feel, and, if necessary, don't pay for a couple of months and see what happens.
Sharing from experiences of dealing with debt
The greatness of a man is not in how much wealth he acquires, but in his integrity and his ability to affect those around him positively.
Bob Marley. http://kallis3.blogs.iva.co.uk
No experience of DMP's but if Halifax are charging interest does this not defeat the object of the exercise? calling it a debt management plan & charging interest sounds like a misnoma to me!
I agree, but unfortunately none of the creditors have to freeze interest or charges, or accept the payments you are offering.
You would think they'd be glad that you are making an effort to pay them back.
Sharing from experiences of dealing with debt
The greatness of a man is not in how much wealth he acquires, but in his integrity and his ability to affect those around him positively.
Bob Marley. http://kallis3.blogs.iva.co.uk
Most companies are usually ok about it, it's just the odd one or two, and you do usually find that once the debt has been sold on, the companies who buy them are normally amenable to a DMP, I did one for 18 months and it was fine.
You would normally do a DMP when other avenues aren't an option for you, or when some companies will refuse an IVA if they can get paid back in full in 6 or 7 years.
Sharing from experiences of dealing with debt
The greatness of a man is not in how much wealth he acquires, but in his integrity and his ability to affect those around him positively.
Bob Marley. http://kallis3.blogs.iva.co.uk
My thoughts exactly Fox84. But Payplan seem quite apathetic about it all. The thing is, if I stop making payments to Payplan then I am likely to have RBS on my back too and they have never been a problem. Unfortunately I am making one payment a month to payplan and they distribute it out to my two debtors based on how much I owe them. For the first twelve months, everything was fine. None of my debtors charged interest and seemed happy for me to pay back what I owe. Then Halifax started adding interest without even telling me. And so it has been like this ever since. Instead of paying all this off in 3yrs 8 mnths. I am likely to be paying for the next 7yrs+ if things do not change.
It must be frustrating Pokemon as everything was going so well, I have an IVA with Payplan & they seem pretty good but I guess it all depends on your case officer!!!
Our IVA's are with Payplan as well, and we've had no problems.
Pokemon, I would speak to them tomorrow and tell them that this is stressing you out and that you want to get it sorted so that your DMP is on track to finish on time.
They should be able to speak to Halifax on your behalf and ask them again to stop the interest.
Sharing from experiences of dealing with debt
The greatness of a man is not in how much wealth he acquires, but in his integrity and his ability to affect those around him positively.
Bob Marley. http://kallis3.blogs.iva.co.uk
I firmly believe that dmp's are used to steady the ship,before entering an iva or going BR. I cant see many companies freezing interest over 7,8,9 or more years.
Discharged today the 8th feb 2012. View is much brighter now.
Continuing to rebuild our credit worthiness.
When we entered our DMP, we were told that we couldn't do an IVA (even though we had enough disposable income to make the same sort of payments we are making now), infact one firm we phoned told us that BR was our only option!
As we own our house, have some equity in it (not enough to repay our debts though) that was not an option. We happily went along with this, and all our creditors cancelled interest and charges. We were with a fee paying company, and it was only when we phoned Payplan to see about swapping across to them that we were offered an IVA. If we hadn't, then we would have been stuck in a DMP for about 20 years!
For some people, I think it is something they will probably have to stick with.
Sharing from experiences of dealing with debt
The greatness of a man is not in how much wealth he acquires, but in his integrity and his ability to affect those around him positively.
Bob Marley. http://kallis3.blogs.iva.co.uk
Our experience with payplan was Ok to start with but they made a mistake with the original calculations for out first IVA application and we ended up with a low dividend offer that failed. We then went into a DMP with them and the service was erratic, constant change of case office without notice. We only found out when the contacts on the jusabank site changed.
Theere were other issues and the end result is a lack of faith in payplan as a service provider for people in financial, I would not reccomend them.
We've found them to be just the opposite. They've phoned us to see how we are getting on, I don't mind the change of case manager as I can see who I need to ask for by checking on Justabank.
I wouldn't hesititate to recommend them.
Sharing from experiences of dealing with debt
The greatness of a man is not in how much wealth he acquires, but in his integrity and his ability to affect those around him positively.
Bob Marley. http://kallis3.blogs.iva.co.uk