Newbie here saying hello and in need of some help!!

[tiki]

Hi Everyone,

I am currently on Mat leave from work and due to go back to work in April, up untill Nov 08 I was managing to cope on the mat pay that I was recieving, and then I started getting into a bit of a financial mess, I started getting into a few arrears with credit cards and council tax, I have managed to sort council tax out but I'm now in arrears with my CC, Welcome Finance and my 2 bank accounts are overdrwn by £1500 (total) £700 of which is charges.

Welcome finance contacted me on Jan 2nd to say DD had bounced I asked if I could make payment on or around 20th out of my child benefit, Account Manager said no it's too late the account was going legal. I had no money at the time so said ok it will have to go legal. Anyway out of the blue he called me again on the 20th asking for payment to be made but I had already made other payments to CC's so couldn't pay. I said that I was going to get CCCS involved for advise, anyway he called me again on 21st to say he had called CCCS and they hadn't heard from me since 2004, are they allowed to do this??

Also my debt with Natwest (my heavily overdrawn accounts) I have now had to take out a loan with them to pay the charges??

Any advise would be greatly appreciated.
Tahnk you.

[Sapphire]

Re: Newbie here saying hello and in need of some help!!

Hiya Tiki and welcome to the site.

Firstly this loan with Welcome is it a car loan or just a plain old fashioned loan ? I doubt if they did call CCCS as it would be a breach of confidence for CCCS to talk to them I do believe, but I'm sure someone will confirm that or not as may be.

Take some time to make out and Income and Expenditure sheet (I/E) found here Legal Beagles then when you have done that and are happy with it go to the Library (Debt Template Letters) Legal Beagles you will find letters there you can adapt and send to your creditors.

Have you any charges on your credit cards and have you claimed them back at all ?

Also I would recommend that you open another account and work from there, that way you have a clean sheet and you can then treat the bank as another debt. I and a few others on here have the Nationwide Flex Account and it works lovely.

I'm not sure about the Nat West loan hun, I'll leave that for one of the others to answer, one question though did the loan cover the debt and it is now the loan that you owe, if you see what I mean.

If you have any other questions or just need a big rant then post it all up and we are all here to support and help you.

[tiki]

Re: Newbie here saying hello and in need of some help!!

Hi Sapphire,

Thanks for looking at this for me,

Debt with Welcome is a personal loan for £1500 I took out some time in 2004, Welcome stopped taking payments and after a few months I came to a payment plan with them paying £35 per month for 24 months (I'm about 13months into this plan) and then that would be end of that. However I've never had this writing so don't know where I stand on this now. In fact I don't even know how much I owe now, could I ask them for a statement of some sort?? I do believe that my 'Account Manager' did call CCCS as he knew that they last spoke to me in 2004? I'm really shocked that CCCS disclosed this info and a little baffled as to why he called them in the first place. I've been reading loads of reviews on welcome and I'm starting to get a little worried as it sounds as though people are in debt to them forever if you ever make a late payment or even miss a payment! I made an offer of payment for £35.00 and he refused it?

In regards to Natwest....my DD's were bouncing I buried my head in the sand, they kept charging me, my O/D limit on one account was £250 but I'm currently £800.24 o/d and the other account has an O/D limit of £500 and I'm overdrawn by £727.00 but it's the charges that have taken me overdrawn, then they put £30.00 default charge on each account and told me I had to clear it by 30th Jan, even though they only wrote to me last week, so I went into the branch and they put me through to the lending team who said they would re-finance my current loan with them and add on my O/D's and remove my overdraft facility which I agreed as I have no other way of paying them, so they've made all this money in charges from me and now they will make a massive amount of interest as well....no wonder the rich keep getting richer and the poor keep getting poorer!!!

[Amy]

Re: Newbie here saying hello and in need of some help!!

I wouldn't think that CCCS disclosed any information. I would think what is more likely is that he has embellished his story to make you believe he is more powerful than the snotty nosed youth he is in reality. However that said, it would be worth a telephone call to CCCS to clarify things.

If you know how much Natwest have charged you, you need to start the reclaim process and get the money back which may be offset against your loan, but it would still help you out in that it would reduce the balance.

[tiki]

Re: Newbie here saying hello and in need of some help!!

Hi Amy,

Yes I will call CCCS just to double check, may also call guy from Welcome back and ask who he spoke to and explain that I'm making a complaint about him and mention Data Protection just to ruffle his feathers!!!

If I bank with natwest can I still claim the charges back or do i have to open up another account with a different bank? Also hows do I claim my CC charges back and wil they then close the cc accounts down because I've claimed?

Sorry I'm a pain I know!!!

[enaid]

Re: Newbie here saying hello and in need of some help!!

Hi Amy,

Yes I will call CCCS just to double check, may also call guy from Welcome back and ask who he spoke to and explain that I'm making a complaint about him and mention Data Protection just to ruffle his feathers!!!

If I bank with natwest can I still claim the charges back or do i have to open up another account with a different bank? Yes you can still claim them back. If you have a lot of DD's etc and you are going to incur a lot more charges, then may be best to open a basic account and make other arrangements to pay people
Also hows do I claim my CC charges back and wil they then close the cc accounts down because I've claimed? You need to first get all your statements from them if you have not already got them, then add your charges up.

Sorry I'm a pain I know!!!

You are not a pain, we all started with the same questions

[Amy]

Re: Newbie here saying hello and in need of some help!!

Yes I will call CCCS just to double check, may also call guy from Welcome back and ask who he spoke to and explain that I'm making a complaint about him and mention Data Protection just to ruffle his feathers!!!

Don't telephone Welcome. Write to them.

Sorry I'm a pain I know!!!

No, you're not.

[tiki]

Re: Newbie here saying hello and in need of some help!!

Thanks guys, this is such a friendly website!!