has any one used payplan before?

A question about : has any one used payplan before?

hi there,

sorry i also posted this in loans section! but only saw iva forum after!

just wanted ask has any one used pay plan for an iva before and if so were they good?

i am consering an iva with them they say i don't pay them the bank does? i have read mixed reviews about them, just wondered if someone maybe had used them and could advise me about them?

thanks

Best answers:

• I'm not a fan of them.
  There are other companies which are much better (in my opinion). But I also don't like certain things about them like some of their terms and consitions.
  I'm sure there will be others along soon who have used them and you'll get the usual array of mixed reviews.
  I was sure there was some OFT Directive that said you weren't allowed to say that you "don't pay them, the bank does" - however it's true, but it's true for all IVA companies.
  You make your monthly payments and the IVA company negotiates their fees to be taken from that pool of money.
• Hi Barber,
  We're with Payplan in an IVA. We're two years into our sentance and so far so good.
  The way I see it (although we didn't 'shop' around) the IP is a just the middle man between you and your debtors. Unfortunately, nothing is free and their fees are steep, which is ironic since you're mortally broke hence the need for an IVA.
  Fortunately, with them and many others no doubt now, the set up is free so once you're up and running it is the end of the pestering...well, mostly.
  Pro's (in our opinion)
  Very friendly and sympathetic staff
  Relatively straight forward to start
  Massive relief if accepted (as with all I imagine)
  No increase in monthly payments despite fluctuations in pay (so far!)
  Ability to heal credit rating 1 year after completion
  Cons
  Still get letters from our debtors (no pre paid envelopes to fwd on)
  The feeling of complete ownership by Payplan
  IMMENCE strict living, every penny counts - TINY Contingency
  Quarterly worry of surprise monthly payment increase
  At annual review, we were made to feel like we had massive surplus amounts of money despite struggling to eat daily...I suppose they have to ring you out as much as possible.
  I hope this hasn't put you off and is purely our life with them and 'it' day to day. I'm sure everyones journey is slightly different but I guess we made our bed...
  Hope you have a smooth ride.
• Hi the barber,
  I was just about to reply to the other thread.
  I'm not quite sure what you mean about you not paying us and the bank paying us.
  Our IVA's come with no upfront fees like some others. Once your IVA is approved you will make your monthly payments into us and we will take a small percentage of that for our fees and the creditors receive the rest. In theory it is the creditors who lose out.
  Hi snicz
  If you are still receiving letters from your creditors you need to let your case officer know if you haven't already as this should have stopped by know. If you don't have any of our envelopes left, give your case officer a quick email and she will send some out for you.
  I am also worried to read that you feel like we own you, I can assure you that we don't not want you to feel that way.
  If you do have any further queries please do not hesitate to ask.
  Lizzy.
• Hi we are also with Payplan and come to the end of our IVA in March after 5 long years, we can honestly say we have had no problems with them and we know if we need any more advice they are only at the end of the phone.
• To be honest, Lizzy, I think we all feel a little "owned" by our various IP companies. After all, finances are often kept to ourselve and to have a 3rd party supervising your budget takes a little getting used to.
• I was with Payplan for my IVA (completed after 3 years by way of full & final third party offer). Had no issues with them, everything ran smoothly and would recommend them.
  Melanie Giles also gets excellent 'reviews'. She is an IP and is a regular contributor/poster on an IVA forum www.iva.co.uk/forum/
• I finished my IVA with Payplan last November. I had no problems, they provided me with a stack of pre-paid envelopes at the beginning so no postage costs, any letters I received from creditors I just sent to them and they dealt with them with no fuss. Annual expenditure reviews were all pretty painless (although I still found them stressful) and although my pay went up during the 5 years, so did my cost of living, so my payments remained the same all the way through. I found Payplan to be understanding, and they seemed to actually care that I had enough money to live on. I have to say that I didn't feel 'owned', but I would say that I felt supported - they were more than happy to answer my many many questions and help with anything like sorting out insurance etc.
  My only quibbles are:
  4 months after making my last payment, I still haven't had my Certificate of Satisfaction. They say the delay is to do with queries from creditors and the fact that they only run disbursements to creditors once a month. The have, however, removed the charge they had on my property.
  Their phone number is an 0845 which is expensive to call (which I couldn't understand as all their clients are living on strict budgets!!!). I stuck to emailing my case officer (free!) - she was pretty good and would usually reply to my emails within an hour (often within minutes).
  Hope this helps!
• To be fair, Debtinfo, I don't believe Charco is "sniping for commercial gain". As far as I am aware Payplan is the only main target (I think largely due to the obtuse way they explain their fee structure) and, if he were after customers then he would be only to keen to display his company -- after all, to lure customers to given company it is helpful if that comapny were signposted -- which it is not !
• yet i see no evidence just hearsay, who knows we might agree if he can prove it.
  Payplan and CCCS, basically the charitable organisations that provide the biggest competition to the private sector
• I work within a collections dept, we recommend; Payplan, CCCS. National Debtline and CAB - Why?
  Because they are free.
  Please don't use the companies that charge you, they are no better than the free ones in fact they are worse because they are taking money that you could be using towards your debt. Remember just because you sign up with a DMC does not mean the creditor will stop trying to contact you.
• altough in an IVA they are not free (all IVA's charge), but are non profitmaking
• At the end of the day the borrower pays whatever is calculated as disposable income into the IVA "pot". From that pot comes the dividend to the creditors and the IP fees (including Payplans). So, from the borrowers point of view there is no difference. My IP gets 15% (which was set by the creditors at the Meeting). I imagine Payplan get much the same amount "donated" by the creditors from the pot too. So, from the IP's / creditors point of view there is still no difference.
  The ones to avoid are those that charge lump sums "up front" (and possibly do not then deliver).
• Hello,
  I have posted before about Payplan as my parner has had many problems since he let them set up a DMP for him. Unfortunately it took a few years to get our heads around what exactly was going on. He would not have bothered with them given the same situation again. They paid some of the creditors late sometimes giving him additional charges for late payment to his accounts and then told him to contact them directly about it when it was Payplans fault. Basically all they do is set up a direct debit to the creditors which i could have done myself. They cannot even guarentee that the interest or charges will be stopped and you are still contacted by the creditors anyway so i cannot see why they are praised atal.
  Although they state that they do not charge for their services and so are getting good publicity for stating this, they definately do! They are gaining fees by pushing insurances onto the people who contact them for help and are at their most vulnerable. The main one as in my partners case was the Cover My Payments which he did not need as he alrealy had PPI's in place which they never even asked him about. He has since cancelled the policy when all this dawned on us and has asked for the Ј800 back that he paid into it, but Payplan claim incredibly that this is not an insurance so they do not have to pay it back as with a mis-sold ppi. They state it is a scheme... they have obviously found a loop hole and somehow are still getting away with this, but isnt it against the OFT's guidelines to abuse their position as a dept management company to sell insurance? For this reason alone they are worse than the banks!
  I am sorry but it really makes me angry! Surely other people have realised what they are up to by now and that they are not such do gooders but are no different than any company out to make money!
• Kazd - CAB do not offer debt solutions, and infact will only refer a client on again to another firm (for IVAs this is Grant Thornton I believe). National Debtline, do they refer the work onwards?
  CCCS refer to their sister company CCCSVA - a fee earning IVA company and Payplan have their own IPs to earn their fees!
  There is no such thing as a free IVA company, and in my opinion this is because the industry is too tightly regulated and it is not so easy to make a pretence of how your fees are earned. DMPs (that you seem to be mistakenly talking about here) are unregulated and so there are no impediments - with the co-operation of the banks - to dressing your fee structure up as "free". That is all by-the-by however.
  Basically though, you refer to companies, who then re-refer the work.
  Debtinfo - I have no interest in naming the company I work for, nor however is it a state secret. Furthermore it is no secret that I work in insolvency.
  I object to your accusation that I have sniped for commercial gain. I also object to your accusation:
  "Additionally you have mentioned on many occasions that you object to part of pay plan's T&C's but have yet to provide any evidence (unless i have missed it)."
  Very clumsy of you to have phrased it in such a manner - a fishing expedition I suspect!
  I have not on "many occasions..." - off hand I can think of possibly three in more recent times. Once here, and on the other two I went on to fully explain my concern - I even left one of them open ended hoping for a response or further explanation from a certain company rep but none was forthcoming! So I would say you HAVE missed it since I have outlined exactly my objection… or perhaps you willfully missed it or infact have not read my "snipes" but are merely generalising.
  FYI - my main objection is to a windfall clause in their IVAs which allows for an extra 25% charge to be levied against the debtor. The debtor most likely doesn't know to object to such a clause and the creditors don't care to object because it only comes in to play when the creditors have been paid in full!
  I have twice questioned this and had no response! If it is untrue then surely it should be refuted and I will apologise immediately - it is not my intention to mislead anyone. If it is true then it is an example of excessive greed and profiteering! I would love to hear a justification for it.
  I entirely agree with you though that "it is unfair to be constantly bashing other firms". I have recommended and praised a number of firms on here, many/mostly with no affiliation or association to me. One or two even that I would have cause to dislike but I cannot fault their work!
  The reason I do not expressly reveal the company I work for is because I am not here in an official capacity or as a representative of that company. I am sure some of the posters on here already know who that company is but I prefer not to make that connection.
  The vast majority of my input on here is constructive and helpful (I like to think anyway). The bulk of it is concerned with people who are already in IVAs and are worried about changes in circumstances or that their IP may not treating them fairly - there could be no possible commercial gain to offering this support to a stranger!
• thanks to every one for their input, does any one know of a good company to use? i have not read a bad report yet on melanie giles? i've not checked out grant thorton yet? still considering pay plan as i have already given them my info! but not signed anything yet.
  thanks again to every one
• Well you know my stance on payplan ha ha, and it would be foolish to stick with them simply because they have some of your Info. If you're happy with them, of course go with them but God forbid you'd suddenly inherit or win a lump sum of money only to have to hand it all over to excessive fees! (and that's just one reason why I dont like them but I'll not continue to beat my drum about it).
  A good company could from a standing start now could still draft a proposal for you in more or less the same time it would take PP and to be honest even if it took longer a week or two isn't going to amount to hill of beans difference when compared to the next five years!
  The best advice i can give you is to go with a company you feel you can trust and are happy to speak to - you are entering a five year relationship wth them!
  Melanie Giles is considered to be very good on the whole. I think FavDaughter used her and had her creditors meeting yesterday. GT are also very good - CAB recommend them anyway!
  You could have a look on "IVA . com" and "IVA . co . uk" where you can read reviews and speak to experts.
• Charco
  I agree that most of your comments are helpfull and you have helped many people on here and i do not want to argue with you but as i say you have not shown any evidence of what you say payplan are doing, it is simply hearsay which i do not believe should be perpetuated if you are not willing to back it up with evidence