First hassling creditor

[couple31]

Got bored to tears by some woman from Goldfish

Went round and round in circles for about 20 minutes in her attempts to make me cough up £50

By the end, she'd convinced me I was going to be tried in the high court and sentanced to 30 years inside if I didn't pay

Stood firm though and stayed polite.

She promised to ring me every day for the indefinite future

Can't wait [:(!]

Most other creditors have ben fine and agreed to wait for the IVA proposal to arrive from my IP

[OPTIMIST12]

8 months in to my IVA I still remember the phone calls and letters all too well. They certainly sap your energy.

Please dont blame the lady - she is only doing her job (sorry for the cliche) and is probably under pressure to meet targets herself. And lets face it - if we were in a creditors position we would do everything to get the best return (noone can be criticised for that).

Good Luck with your IVA couple31!!!

[couple31]

Thanks, you are right entirely about them just doing a job, that's why I stayed polite

Interesting, the different tricks that she played though, including insisting that an IVA would take a minimum of 16 weeks before it could get to a creditor's meeting and that 90% of all IVA's are rejected

I suggested that she checked this site out for more info

[OPTIMIST12]

There is no doubt that many of the phone calls are just designed to frighten you and are sometimes factually wrong. Personally I found the letters more depressing - that pile of plain white envelopes in the morning!! And in the early stages you just dont know what to believe.

My IVA took just under two months from first contact with my IVA company to the Creditors Meeting. I think that seems to be about the norm for straightforward cases where there are no property related or other complications. I must say that two months went by in somewhat of a blur but I found the company dealing with my IVA to be first-rate and although I had dozens (hundreds??) of communications from Creditors I had no unpleasant threats from anyone.

Plus I found this forum - and have been hooked ever since!!!!

[couple31]

Yeah, this place is fantastic [:D]

Hopefully going to get our proposal stamped by the court this week and then submitted so the creditors meeting can be arranged asap

My wife is due to give birth on the 21st November so hopefully we'll get our meeting set before then !

We are going for a one off lump sum iva

[aguise]

well done . They will say anything on the phone sometimes, they told my hubby they would charge us £10 for every call they made, he just politely told them to add it to the iva and that we didnt require them to ring so much so it was their choice not ours. Suffice to say they did not add anything. Thats it stay polite and give them your company ref and refer them to the company. I found the calls died down a lot after they got the proposal. all the b est with the meeting and the expected arrival how lovely.

Ang

Please visit my blog at http://aguise.blogs.iva.co.uk/

[lily]

These people can sometimes be rude and intrusive, I had one on the phone every 20 mins for two days, eventually I said I was going to record the calls and complain quoting the harrassment laws, it did ease off a little. If youre feeling low and bad about the debts, sometimes they can be too much, I found that if I said, I know youre only doing your job but I cant pay you anything,i f you want to talk to the wall I will leave the phone here, away you go or move on. Its just a matter of not giving them the upper hand, although I owe the money, it isnt their job to go out of the way to make me feel bad and I dont need reminding every 20 mins.

On another board I read about someone who would not let them past the security checks, saying, well how do I know who you are??? I know my mothers maiden name, do you??

lily

[bagpuss]

I'm really sorry but i find it very difficult to think "they are just doing there job"...I totally understand they have targets and supervisors breathing down there necks but they chose that job.

I am all for it being a debt that they want to recover, but asking for something that we just have not got in the maner that they do is pointless.

I told them time and time again that if i had the money then i would gladly pay it to them...i wasnt just not paying...i could not pay. But that i was doing the next best thing by getting help.

At one point i was in tears on the phone to this guy who wasnt just doing his job, he was getting a real kick out of making me squirm....his words were "its no good crying now is it sweetheart, you got yourself into this mess"..........This is not doing his job...this is cruel and unessesary.

I dont know who i think is worse, those making the calls, those who trained them or the supervisers pushing them to meet targets.

Talk about kicking you when your down...i could understand if people just did not pay and hadnt got help...but when you are doing the best you can to get it sorted i think they should ease up.


Angie xx


My IVA Story......http://bagpuss.blogs.iva.co.uk/2007/09/ ... iva-story/

[couple31]

As I work from home and have a business line and a home line , if the calls get too frequent on the home line, they will just have to wait or get an engaged tone if I take it off the hook.

I'll always do my best to talk to them where possible but not at the detriment of talking to my clients on the office line and I don't want my wife having to talk to them as the last thing she needs at the moment is to get upset.

[OPTIMIST12]

Hi Bagpuss -

I agree - the approach taken by that guy was totally out of order and unacceptable. I suppose in this business bad apples like him are bound to crop up but you are 100% right - it is wrong to take some sort of pleasure in kicking people when they are down.

People in debt are certainly an easy target.

[lily]

I agree too, they are doing a job by trying to get money out of you, I wasnt saying I agree with them, just try not to take it personally and dont let them get the upper hand just because you owe them the money. They lie through their teeth to scare you into making a payment but at the end of the day they are desperate to make their target. Many people will fall for the threats they make, dont be one of them. It nearly drove me to suicide, I changed my phone number to escape it.

lily

[scaredkez]

lily is right they drive you to despair, the phone calls are so horrible, once you are sorted in what ever way you have to go you will feel immense relief, i am 12 months on now, its all over for me, ok may have to move soon, but the debt is all gone, the phone calls have stopped, the letters on the mat, you will get through this and come out the other side a better person, don't let them grind you down,you are facing up to your problems, and hoping to get them sorted be proud of that, it is certainly not an easy time and hopefully in 12 months like me you can look back and say did i really go through that!
best of luck
kerri

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

[mikebdomain]

couple31 - not to belittle the situation or conversation at all but,

Got bored to tears by some woman from Goldfish, Went round and round in circles for about 20 minutes

Sorry, that made me giggle – isn’t that what goldfish do?


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[couple31]

[:D]

She certainly had the attention span of a goldfish

Her: Sir, you have to make a payment today
Me : I don't have any money at present
Her: Sir, Are you saying that you refuse to pay
Me : No I'm saying, I have no money today
Her: Sir you have to make a payment today

Repeat for 20 minutes

[Skippy]

I used to work in a call centre for Telewest and it was awful. It was incoming calls, but the abuse we used to get was terrible - even as far as threats to kill us just because someone hadn't paid their phone or TV bill and we'd had the cheek to cut them off! The training was really poor, the money was bad and the stress was awful - we were expected to take 80-100 calls a day and if we didn't we could be disciplined.

It did have it's lighter moments - I did the night shift once and a guy rang up and said the adult channel wasn't working and could I tell him what was happening!

Don't get me wrong, I'm not defending the way call centre staff talk to people who are in debt but I think very few people would choose to work in a call centre if they didn't have to.

Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, today is the present - a gift to make the most of.

View my blog at http://skippy13.blogs.iva.co.uk/