stop paying them?

[JoeB]

we have been told that once we have nominated the our IVA company (Thomas clarke) that we should stop paying creditors - but given that it will take about 8 weeks to set up will we get loads of threats and hassle in the mean time and will they start serving all sort of notices?

We have always struggled to pay them and have no ccj s or anying else against us[:(]

[scaredkez]

hi welcome to the forum, this is the norm, once entering into the iva process you are told not to pay your creditors, you will get phonecalls and letters, a lot i hasten to add, however it takes a couple of months to get a ccj a lot will threaten and try alsorts of scare tactics and thats about all they will be, don't worry we are here to support you and any questions you may have, keep us posted and let us know how you are doing, have you opened up a basic bank account yet? has your IP told you to do that, good luck
kerri

Please view my blog at: http://scaredkez.blogs.iva.co.uk/

[JoeB]

hi welcome to the forum, this is the norm, once entering into the iva process you are told not to pay your creditors, you will get phonecalls and letters, a lot i hasten to add, however it takes a couple of months to get a ccj a lot will threaten and try alsorts of scare tactics and thats about all they will be, don't worry we are here to support you and any questions you may have, keep us posted and let us know how you are doing, have you opened up a basic bank account yet? has your IP told you to do that, good luck
kerri

Please view my blog at: http://scaredkez.blogs.iva.co.uk/

we have a joint account with the abbey national (not a creditor) where we haave a debit card and I was hoping to carry on with that account - do you think there will be a problem?

[hallway]

i think you should be fine with your bank account, i had a joint account with Darclays (who i did owe money to) and they told me i could keep using it as long as i didnt overdraw,i didnt though cos i was worried they might take money off me,as for the letters i didnt get any really nasty onesand i changed my phone number so i didnt get any phone calls, i couldnt have dealt with the stress of them.

[JoeB]

hi welcome to the forum, this is the norm, once entering into the iva process you are told not to pay your creditors, you will get phonecalls and letters, a lot i hasten to add, however it takes a couple of months to get a ccj a lot will threaten and try alsorts of scare tactics and thats about all they will be, don't worry we are here to support you and any questions you may have, keep us posted and let us know how you are doing, have you opened up a basic bank account yet? has your IP told you to do that, good luck
kerri

Please view my blog at: http://scaredkez.blogs.iva.co.uk/

The letters I can probably cope wit it wil be the calls - can I change my telephone number will this annoy them and make it less likely that they accept the IVA?

[JoeB]

i think you should be fine with your bank account, i had a joint account with Darclays (who i did owe money to) and they told me i could keep using it as long as i didnt overdraw,i didnt though cos i was worried they might take money off me,as for the letters i didnt get any really nasty onesand i changed my phone number so i didnt get any phone calls, i couldnt have dealt with the stress of them.

Thanks for this this is really a horrible scarey process

[hallway]

as i say i changed my number just fold bt i was gettin nuisance phone calls (which i would av bin) and they changed it free of charge within 5 hrs,my iva was approved so couldnt av annoyed them that much, now only people i want to phone me v my number.

[Soulgrowth]

I am self-employed and so couldn't afford to change my telephone number during the time my IVA was being prepared. I set up call divert on my home telephone number which was the number the creditors had on file for me. After officially notifying my creditors of my intention to propose an IVA and and making my gesture of goodwill payments of £5 to each creditor (again, as advised by my IP) I diverted all calls to my mobile phone which has caller display and so I could see immediately which were the creditors calling ... and thus didn't answer the calls. It cost a little more in picking up the cost of the diverted calls for two months but was well worth it for sanity's sake

[eeun]

i found that if you can take the calls and explain what the situation is and ask for their names it becomes more personal for them,also make sure that they make notes of the call as all that happens is your name and number continues to appear on contact lists on a computer screen and its nothing personal just some poor sod trying to do a job.One problem that i found was understanding the person at the other end as they appear to be foreign nationals(call centres).
it depends how strong you are as an individual to keep taking the calls,but it will stop and you can get on with your life

[iva experts]

Hi g.g.r and Welcome to the Forum,

I think an important thing to know is that when your creditors call you, the person on the other end of the phone will almost always have nothing to do with your IVA or see your proposal.

As stated already all they have is a computer screen in front of them with numbers to call. They will not be the ones that vote.

Best Regards. IVA Experts

[Adam Davies]

Hi
One other point is that once you stop paying all creditors then, regardless of the amount of phone calls,stick to your guns.If you make a payment to keep them happy they will probably be back on the phone to you a few days later wanting more.
Regards

Andy Davie
IVA.co.uk Spokesperson and site manager
(aka Neverending)

Please check out my blog: http://andydavie.blogs.iva.co.uk

View my profile here:
http://www.iva.co.uk/andy_davie_profile.asp

[ivoriva]

Andy is absolutely right. You must make up your mind what you want to do regarding payments whilst an IVA is being drafted and stick to your guns. I would say dont offer more than a token payment(£1,£2,or £5 per month), if its more than that you should calculate pro-rata payments but this should come out somewhat less than minimum payments else they will think you can afford to repay! Dont forget, you have to draft your I&E to see what you really can afford, & you shouldnt use credit at all from now on.

Will a token payment ease calls? Some have said yes, some no. Certainly my calls went up as I stopped paying anything, but went down again once they had got the proposal and a meeting date set. But do expect at least a weekly call or maybe fortnighly call from some creditors - just tell them you've made your token payment for this month (if you have), your IVA proposal is being drafted and you cant afford anymore. For me, people like egg & smile didnt bother me at all - once I told them I was proposing a IVA. People like HFC (a division of HSBC), lloyds & barclays (rather their debt collectors, mercers) did. One other tip, dont ignore the calls (unless you are going to change your number). As they will ring several times a day, leave messages, text your mobile etc etc until they spoken to you. You might also want to check what numbers they have on the system for you - one of my creditors had my parents and needless to say they rang them time after time one bank holiday weekend which meant I had to admit to *some* of my problems to my parents!

[sharon.t]

hi there there ia another way to stop calls if you subscribe to bt.If you frequently receive unwanted or nuisance calls from a particular number, you can block that number from getting through to you. This ensures your peace of mind and, if later on you change your mind, you can lift the block and allow the caller to contact you again.It costs around £3.00 i used it and thought it was worth it as the calls were constant hope this helps

[ivoriva]

Sharons advice is good, but is there a maxmimum number you can block? I found that my creditors were calling from different numbers on different occassions, probably 3 or 4 different no's for some creditors - and then if it goes to a DCA then its yet another set!