www.iva.co.uk

They've been ringing since Saturday and one of the kids answered the phone!

It was Nationwide and I have to say they were quite nice. I told him that I couldn't pay, that I was insolvent and applying for an IVA and was hoping for it to be completed in a month or so.

He said they would update their records. Hopefully he will....but I guess there could me more to come from them!

My heart is beating double time!

I'm glad they were sympathetic Cath. I hope that your other creditors are as understanding.

You could always change your phone number if you are worried about your kids picking up on this.

Cath...seems like you handled it well.

By the way I have spoken to a couple of friends lately who work in call centres and deal with personal financial affairs.....as far as they are concerned they reckon no one is bothered either way who is on the other end of the line. They just call them because they're instructed to and at the end of the day all we are is telephone numbers to them....they go home and dont give a second thought to any calls that day.....so guess what...I reckon we should do the same.

Enjoy your evening and forget the call.....will let you know when i recieve mine.

Well done Cath, as we know it is very difficult to talk to these people, but that is all they are, people, just like us, keep your cool, know what you're going to say, then say it.

good post penny.

Sorry, but a lot of us are bothered by the phone calls, and always will be.

I really could not try and bully people into paying money across and then be able to go home and forget about it.

Yes kallis I know what you mean, I guess I was lucky as the guy was cool and he was after all just doing his job as Penny said. At least now I've got my first one over and done with.

We have some smaller debts with Barclaycard and am not looking forward to these Mercers people calling! I've read too much about them!

Mercers are a pain - I ignored the calls until the day my IVA was approved. I always answered their letters though.

I won't stand for being bullied on the phone, I won't lower myself to their level and argue back either. I can communicate politely via letter and these companies should accept that.

Sainsbury's Bank just rang on hubby's phone, missed the call though....let the bombardment commence!

I appreciate they are only doing their job, but there's no need to be nasty and rude as a lot of them are.

OK, maybe we're only telephone numbers to them, but perhaps they need to remember that we are also human beings.

I was polite to the creditors who were polite to me, MBNA were the worst and they were left in no uncertain terms what I thought of them. I might have been insolvent, but that didn't make them any better than me.

I quite agree Skip. There is no reason to belittle people who are having problems. It would be nice to be offered help for a change, rather than being threatened.

I wouldn't tolerate being spoken down to or belittled, I did speak to them but only by script that I had written before the phone calls started. I never diversed from the script and was never rude, I agree with Jan in respect of Mercers they were bully boys in my personal opinion, threatening all sorts, luckily for me it never materialised and they never particularly unnerved me however, I can imagine how they can do this to some people.

Well done for answering the calls, I used to put our home phone on silent when we had visitors!

We were fortunate in as much as we signed up to Broadband talk with BT and got a totally new number which no one knew. Although we keep the old number as well, all we did was unplug the phone! I ignored calls on my mobile as well.

They are doing their job, but I couldn't be talking to people the way they do.

I do realise and respect someone has to do it but it wouldn't be my choice of job.

Nor mine.

These people should realise that they are speaking to fellow human beings who deserve to be treated with some respect.