As you may remember in my last blog I’d just dispensed with the services of a debt management company.

The first thing I did was contact each of the creditors and provide them with an up to date copy of my income/expenditure plan and a covering letter which included my offer of payment. The payments offered were a little higher as they each included a percentage of the management fee i’d previously been paying the debt management company.

Luckily, the creditors accepted this but did state they would request a review of my plan on a 6 monthly basis.

I set up standing orders with my bank and created a spreadsheet (debts.xls) which detailed the amounts owing to each creditor on a reducing monthly basis.

Payments started to go through and all was well.

Then the phone calls started….

Halifax (credit card) started to ring asking about increasing payments and how much was outstanding on the debt. Despite advising them that I had an agreement in place the person on the phone never seemed intrested. Even on the occasions when I was told that i’d received no more calls they still came!!!

In the end, I advised the next caller that their continued harrassment of me by telephone put them in breach of Section 40 of the Administration of Justice Act 1970 & the protection from Harassment Act 1997.

I then wrote a formal letter of complaint (halifax-credit-card-complaint.doc). Within a week the calls ceased and to this day I’ve never received one call!!     

Next time I’ll go through what happens when a debt is passed from a creditor onto a credit collections agency.

Take Care

Alex.