Quick Question

RCIRL

Hello all, I've been out of work since Jan, managed to keep up my outgoings until Aug/Sept. I found myself reaching a point of difficulty so decided to contact my lenders by letter to inform them of my situation and I suggested a payment that suits my current position and to return to full payments etc when back to work.

I have sent letters to 3 lenders, so far only one has confirmed and agreed. The other two are still sending reminders, I thought maybe they had not processed the info and I was just receiving automated reminders.

Just this morning a letter arrived from one lender, dated 9th Oct. In the letter the lender states I must respond within 4 days from letter date, if not a debt collector will be sent out and I will have to also cover that cost.

Its now the 13th, it took the 4 days to reach my address.

Is this an acceptable procedure from the Bank?

I have never missed one single payment in all of my life on any loans or borrowings until recently. Due to the nature of Ireland today surly the bank have to also suffer to some extent.

I already notified the bank of my situation, It looks like the letter I sent out got mixed up somewhere and the lending manager never received it.

Jet Black

This is not really helpful now, but always follow up a letter with a phone call.
If I were trying to make these arrangements I would ring first tell them i'm sending a letter, send the letter and ring again.


I was in 3months of arrears with my bank. What happened was month 1 I got a reminder month 2 another reminder saying it may affect my icb, month 3 I got a letter saying if payments are not made they would take legal action to recover the full amount. After this is a summons.


Im not sure about sending out collectors? Have been out of the banking game a year now so could be the norm, but it still seems odd to me. Even over such a short space of time.

jeckle

First of all, good on you for being pro-active & approaching the lenders yourself. It’s unfortunate that, even though you did this that two of them did not reply to your letters.

As regards the lender who sent you the letter that you received today, you should consider doing up a quick cover letter addressed for the attention of whoever signed the letter you got at the exact address & dept. Often, letters seem to get ‘lost’ internally for various reasons.

Anyway, it’s in your best interest to make sure that it gets to where it should go, so, in the short covering letter I would just say that you received their letter & that you had actually written to them on such & such a date, & enclose a copy of what you sent (assuming that you have one). I would both fax it & also send it by registered letter as soon as you can.

For the third lender I would ring them & ask them for the exact address of their credit control dept & the manager’s name (there is no need to say who you are – you can just say you are acting on someone else’s behalf), & send a covering letter attached to a copy of your original letter by registered post to them.

Alternatively, you could ring your local MABS office & explain to them that you need to make an appointment with them, but that you do have one particular lender who is getting more serious, & that you’d appreciate an appointment as soon as possible. They will do their best to accommodate you.

MABS are an excellent & deal with this sort of thing every day – they provide a completely non-judgemental & confidential service, & will contact your creditors on your behalf, informing them that they are currently advising you. Thet won’t let you offer anything to anybody if they don’t think you can afford to, & they won’t force you to do anything you don’t want to either. They will ask them to hold off on any collection procedures until such time that they contact them again when a clearer picture of your affairs is available to them.

You seem to have taken the bull by the horns & well capable of dealing with things yourself. The only thing I would say is that it does look good to a creditor if a state sponsored body is intervening on your behalf. It also looks good on their end as they have more official looking letters in your file, so it’s up to you which way to go.

Best of luck.

RCIRL

Great stuff, thanks for taking the time to answer my question. I am going to write to the two lenders again and include copies of the letters they have lost. Sending the letters by registered post.

I have heard of MABS, I thought they just give information, its nice to know their is a system in place. I am going to ring the local MABS office tomorrow to book an appointment.

Thanks again.

Jet Black

You should also check out there website lots of good info here.

RCIRL

Thanks for the link, I had a scan over it. Looks like I was right to notify them and to work out payments to suit my situation. Its a pity the banks cant seem to control where letters end up and the funny thing is, should they go ahead and hamper with my 100% credit rating it may affect my chances a securing the only work I can now find available.

After searching for work since Jan unsuccessfully I have now decided to ditch my trade and look at another option, this option requires me to be clean from the possibility of looming debt collectors, court dates etc. If the banks press on like they are doing now it will remove my chances of securing this work completely.

This is why I feel I have to now include MABS and I will be making them aware of all the above.

Thanks for all your help and best of luck to those reading in a similar situation.