the following is posted as is, unaltered and unsolicited in anyway by DCM.

 A tale of a debt victim turned credit survivor.

Are we sitting comfortably? Good, then I will begin.

This is the story of a man who tried his hardest to give his wife all he could when they married so that she could have the nicest flat that he could provide for her. Don’t get me wrong, I am not trying to evoke sympathy or apply for sainthood. I was just an ordinary man in love, who didn’t know how to budget or say the word “No” occasionally. Before I knew what was going on, I was in debt to the tune of £25,000.

Now comes the stupid part, rather than attempt to recover the situation and stop my overspending, I decided to ignore the reality of the situation and carry on spending. Who wouldn’t? The answer to that is the wise man wouldn’t!

 I decided to go down the route of rob Peter to pay Paul. Every month for years, I would use one card to pay the other cards monthly minimum and then the next month, use one of the others. Every month I succeeded in getting away with it, I patted myself on the back and told myself what a great job I had done in managing my debt. When I arrived at a month where there were no cards to pay the others minimum payment, I simply applied for another one. I always got it because my credit rating was excellent. What do you expect, I was making the minimum payments every single month and the credit industry really did not care how I made those payments. If that sounds familiar to you and you aren’t already doing something to get help, do it now. You owe it to yourself to get out of the trap as fast as you can. I didn’t see how stupid I was being until I came out of the other side of the tunnel.

This situation went on for several years and I actually began to think I was some sort of financial genius who had found a way to beat the system. The only trouble is that the system always finds a way to win. Eventually, after 10 years of fighting against my mounting debts, I was now in debt to the tune of £60,000. At long last I began to see that I was not so smart after all. I decided to call in the services DCM Debt Management Ltd. They are a marvellous company who act as a person’s financial agents and, in the first instance, negotiate with all the creditors involved to set up what is in effect an Individual Voluntary Arrangement (IVA). In the second instance, they take full control of dealing with your creditors, including making all the monthly payments. Sure, there is a management fee but it is small and cost effective and the peace of mind it brings is worth some much more than any monetary value in sheer peace of mind.

My creditors were using some very morally and legally dubious tactics to try and get me to do what they wanted. Sure, I owed them money and it was my fault that I was in this position, but what they were demanding was just not feasible. More often than not they demanded more money than I was actually in receipt of to make the payments.

Finally, after 12 years and £65,000 of debt, I realised at long last that I was never going to clear my debts and fulfil my obligations. There was no room for manoeuvre nor were there any “clever” little dodges I could pull to stay one step ahead of the game. I contacted DCM and asked them to help me file for bankruptcy. They did this very quickly and efficiently and on 4^th August 2006, I was declared bankrupt at Burnley Combined Court. If you ever find yourself in this situation, don’t do what I did and fret to the point of nausea before entering the Court room to see the Judge. I was warned that mine was a somewhat pedantic, slow plodding Judge. If you hear that, start to celebrate for you have the perfect Judge. My Judge dotted every I and crossed every t before he even came to talk to me. This may have taken time but it was worth it because it meant that there was no possibility for any of my creditors to declare the judgement void. Because I could demonstrate that I had been trying deal with my debts and that I had taken steps to satisfy my creditors, the Judge was very sympathetic with my situation and granted my bankruptcy order.

Next came the Official Receivers, they take over dealing with your creditors and it is in fact them who inform the creditors that you are now bankrupt. Now for the real reason to thank your lucky stars for a geed Judge and for a fully completed bankruptcy application, the official Receivers decided that because there was so little administration of my case to be done and because I had co-operated so completely, my case should be considered for early release. They applied to the Court on my behalf and on 25^th January 2007, I was officially released from my bankruptcy order. Although there is no legal basis for this next part, the credit reference agencies will hold my name and bankruptcy on their files for 6 years from the date of the initial order being made, so, in my case that will be until 4^th August 2012. I don’t mind this because it actually works in my favour; it stops me from getting into this mess again.

One thing that you are not told about by anyone is that it is very useful to get hold of a certificate of release from Bankruptcy from the Court. It costs £60 which is a bit pricey but it is very useful because you can send copies of this certificate to your former creditors so that they can amend your records with the credit reference agencies. This is kind of useful as it does go some way to negating the detrimental effects of the bankruptcy. It will allow you to receive successful credit reports when apply in for a bank debit card example.

To finish, I will offer three pieces of advice to anyone who wants them and if you don’t, I am going to give it out anyway. First, don’t get into this mess in the first place. Second, if you are in this mess get help straight away, don’t sit there trying to deal with it all on your own. This can be help from your creditors or any of the debt management companies out there. Third and last, don’t let your debts rule your life. That sounds very trite and easy but it is vital that you follow that last piece of advice, if you don’t; I can almost guarantee you a nervous breakdown of some degree or other. Mine came a week after DCM took the load off my shoulders, I couldn’t cope with the sudden release.

There is a light at the end of the tunnel.

The above article was written by Sean o'Callaghan and Sean has kindly offered to answer questions directly via email if anyone wishes:

spurs-boy@hotmail.co.uk

Sean is in no way affiliated or connected to DCM Money Solutions.