www.iva.co.uk

As i couldn't get an IVA [because of DLA etc.] so it was suggested a DMP would be the way forward , this is a bit of an update really, Barclaycard/Barclaycard loan, Mint, and CITI , have all frozen interest and accepted my predicament, The co-operative bank are being 'b*****' minded and reckon they haven't recieved third party letters etc. BUT my IP is on to it , so all in all for me a DMP is'nt proving too bad at the moment, and i'm even sleeping at night [:)]

Just to let people know all is'nt neccasarily lost if an IVA gets refused

That's a really helpful post for anyone considering their position at the moment, and thank you for sharing that information with us.

Lets hope the freeze on interest is not just for a short period!

I did a DMP for 18 months and all of my creditors froze the interest.

I do find it annoying that some companies don't - after all,they will get back in full what they lent you and they will already have recouped some interest on it.

We are also fairly early on in a dmp and have found some companies really helpful (M&S, HFC, Next particularly) but, like you, have found the Cooperative to be completely disorganised. They lose paperwork, swear blind they haven't been paid then mysteriously find it but - best of all- insisted we had paid them £488 which we knew nothing about - I wish!! So far not too bad though and at least we are down to just a couple of calls a week now.

Your post is interesting to me as a DMP has been suggested for my situation. What I don't understand is that my advisor states that the first payment I make will be effectively his fee, along with a % of the second. I have no objection to the fees at all but won't my creditors get a bit miffed if they don't receive anything from my advisor for 2 months, last thing I want is them chasing me for 2 months while nothing is released by my advisors.

Am I musundertsnading the process or is this normal

thanks

With the DMP that I did, the company's fees were included in each monthly payment I made to them, so the agreed payments were sent out to the creditors each month.

Can I suggest that you think about changing companies? Payplan and CCCS do DMP's and don't charge you a penny for it. All of your payment goes to the creditors.

thanks for that Kallis, I was wondering about the company!

did your creditors (or anybody else's who is reading this)keep ringing you up asking for more money or were you left alone with your company doing all the work

The company I used was a fee paying one, but we had no problems with them.

Our creditors accepted the payments, and just used to ring up every 6 months and ask if anything had changed. When we told them no, they went away again.

Occasionally we used to have a letter or phone call telling us the payment was late, but we just used to tell them that we had made the payment to the company and had no control over when they sent it out.

The payment always used to show up on the next statement.

When comparing fee paying DMP companies against "charities" or "not for profit" companies - remember nothing is really free.

CCCS and Payplan are both funded by creditors themselves, and therefore may be seen to operate with creditors interests as a priority, so I would check out private companies as well just to compare the service and advice you get.

We had no problems with our fee paying company at all.

thanks for your speedy responses, just checked out CCCS and Payplan,

I know what you mean about nothing being for free and I don't expect it to be I just don't want some company keeping hold of my money for 2 months without releasing it to creditors who rightly might start to get a bit cheesed off with having nothing for 2 months

another thing, my advisor suggested that I set up another bank account straight away so that my monthly wage is safe, does this sound familiar to anybody?

Yes, that is something you need to do if your bank is one of your creditors.

If you don't,there is always the chance that your bank could withdraw your money to offset against what you owe them.

In reply to the earlier question, our creditors rang loads until the first payment went to them and then calls dropped right off. We tried to do as advised on here and just ignore the calls - you can often tell it's a chasing call by the long pause before anyone says anything. To be fair, on the occasions we have spoken to creditors, no-one has been at all rude just sometimes a bit patronising.

We still get odd calls and letters but nowhere near as many.

By the way, we are with a fee paying company too but are always able to speak to either our contact or the admin people and emails are replied to really quickly.

I'm with a fee charging company as well , and every time i phone with a stupid question they always answer/reassure and deal with it straight away, and if the lovely lady is away from her desk , another person tries thier best or i get a phone call straight back [:)]

And wether the interst is frozen forever or a short time , i'm sleeping at night [;)]