Money Talk - Debt mostly.

Yes drew used the company for his benefit to get the payments down and interest frozen left it like that for about 4 years and then contacted each creditor himself and said currently with B&E and you froze my intrest, if I leave them will you retain the 0% and for that you can have x much more a month. All where happy to do that only one wanted to apply an intreset which is 0.01% so peanuts in the scheme of things.

Drop Drew a PM he will explain it better I think

[Mr Speirs]

There are government backed companies out there that will help you out. Get on directgov im sure that will be more helpful.

Plowsie - you need to go into this with your eyes wide open..... rabbit in headlight stuff.

Firstly, make absolutely sure that you're not inadvertently signing up to an IVA (coz it sure sounds like you might be if you sign). This will seriously affect your ability to gain credit/loans/mortages in the future. Sure, if there's no alternative then maybe it is for you, but either way you need to take independent advice first. Tim Wilky's advice is correct - try to use your money to pay off your debts rather than pay someone to manage them for you.

Secondly, talk to your creditors. They often helpful.

Thirdly, and don't laugh, the Citizen's Advice Bureau offer a free debt counselling service. Try it. You might be a lot better off afterwards.

Originally Posted by plowsie

Are you not with the company anymore but are still using the rates that they got you?

Your debtors are obliged to accept any payment plan that you can honestly demonstrate as being what you can afford to pay, after all if they take you to court it will cost them a fortune, and the court will only award what you can afford to pay anyway.

When B&E negotiated Drew's payment plan, they did exactly this. But Drew would still have been liable for the debt, and the agreement to repay would still have been between Drew and the debtor. B&E are just managing the debt, giving you one single monthly payment, and taking a commission. They are essentially a broker. If Drew then dumps B&E and decides to deal direct, there is no reason why the rate at which he is making his payments would change, he is just cutting out the middleman and the middleman's fee.

The advantage of a loan if you can get one and you are prepared to pay the interest for the convenience, is that you don't need to manage multiple payments or do any negotiation with debtors. You pay them off and get a fresh start paying a single monthly repayment to the bank, and don't worry any further about your credit rating (so long as you don't take on any new credit!)

The Citizen's Advice Bureau will teach you how to do exactly the same negotiations with your debtors that B&E did for Drew. You don't actually NEED a company like B&E, they won't get you a better monthly payment if you present your finances in the same way as them to your debtors, they are only useful because they have the knowledge to play the game. After they have negotiated the payments for you all they do is collect your convenient single monthly payment, and pay out to your multiple debtors, since this is all automated they do very little else except sit back and take your £30 quid month after month.

Originally Posted by Jabba

Firstly, make absolutely sure that you're not inadvertently signing up to an IVA

Agreed, serious credit history bending stuff tthat stays on your record for 6 years.

Plowsie - Ignore this bit in terms of advice 'cos I don't know what I'm talking about here, it's a question. When I was dealing with negotiating my debt IVA's existed, but were not widely offered to consumers, these debt management companies were in their infancy and an IVA was seen as one step away from outright bankruptcy. But I thought there was a law whereby a debtor could only hold a debt against a consumer for seven years, after which time they had to write it off against provision for bad debts on their balance sheets. So if you paid £5 per week for seven years, and still had only cleared half the debt, the other half had to be written off anyway, no IVA required, and no impact on your credit history? Things might have changed.