www.iva.co.uk

i was off work for a few days last week when i returned i was told by colleagues that someone kept ringing for me when i checked the number it was a firm called RMA instructed by one of my creditors,MBNA to contact me about late payment,i am in the process of applying for a Iva and have selected a firm, its stressful enough but i thought i would be able to do this in private but now my co workers know theres something amiss ,given the fact that i have just changed banks i suspect i will be gossip fodder i am worried how management will react given my job involves handling large amounts of cash are these people entitled to do this.

H micawber,

I can sympathise with you - it's most embarrasing when this happens.

I would suggest that you contact this firm, inform them of what you are doing and tell them not to ring you at work as you are not allowed personal calls and may well lose your job, in which case they wouldn't be getting any money at all.

You could tell your colleagues that you have either been having a few problems since changing your bank, or that the new bank are trying to sell you something.

I know other posters have done this in the past and it seems to have worked.

Make sure that your IP firm has actually contact the creditors and asked them to deal with them directly. Some will refuse to do this until an IVA is in place, but a lot of them will and this may take some pressure away from you whilst the IVA is being prepared.

I have to be honest( with you lot!) and I lied thru my teeth when I was changing my bank account. Unfortunatly the whole office knew I was changing banks as I had 2 days to open an account and change my bank details before the cut off date at work otherwise my whole wage would of disapeared.

I made out Lloyds had done me wrong and they were not having another single penny off me for their shoddy cutomer service!! Part of it is true, i did recieve shoddy service.

I wasnt looking for sympathy but it just made it easier when i needed to nip out to sort opening an account!!

That's a good way of dealing with it FC. I'm sure we have all had problems with our banks in the past.

My daughter has changed hers three times in the last 18 months as she had problems with the first two refusing to give her a debit card.