I don't want to start a war but had to share something my DH just told me and I am utterly gobsmacked by it.

He works with a few guys that are pretty rubbish with money. They always claim poverty, never have any money, kids always look like they need a good wash and some news clothes but seem to find money to smoke dope and go down the pub! Has always got my goat but me and DH have learnt to ignore it as it does bug us.
One of them has now announced they are going on holiday for 2 weeks all inclusive to egypt. There are 4 kids so they are having to pay for 4 adults and 2 children. I laughed when I found out and said how the bloody hell are they affording that. DH then said "oh they did one of those IVA things and declared bankruptcy so now they have no debt at all and are free to start again! He said he has come into work bragging that now his wife can give up work, not that she did very much before! He now has more money than he has ever had so they have just booked a holiday and put it on their credit card. They have ordered a new tv, on credit too!
I'm just gobsmacked that they are using it as a "lets start again" tool.
THe IVA's are there for a bloody good reason, for people who have unfortunate circumstances and have no where else to turn, not for people who waste their money on drink or drugs, put everything on credit then have it all written off!
Now when I say i'm broke, I mean all my money has gone on bills and I can' willy nilly buy clothes/take aways etc. Now I can afford lots of things if i put them on credit.
I'm happy with people that live on credit if thats their choice, but to then just have it written off for reasons they could have avoided is just immoral! I honestly don't know how they sleep at night!
So, I have worked all my life, so has DH, saving money like crazy so I can have 10 months off with our child with no debt, they eat and drink what they like, go on holidays and actually seem to live a better life than we do!!!
I now wonder if i'm just a bit naive and should be playing the system a bit better as obviously i'm the mug!!!
Well rant over, I really am overwhelmed!
Em
33+3
xxx

I will simply say I agree lol -otherwise I'll clamber on my soap box and you wont get me down - dh has banned me from watching Question Time and Jeremy Kyle for similar reasons grrrrr lol

that would p me off too chick although I'm suprised they are able to get credit again as usually although it is written off its very hard to get loans, however there are always those companies that will happily lend and charge 50% interest to any Tom Dick or Harry that walks in (Iused to work for one and left after 6 months as it was so unethical, we were being pushed to max out pensioners limits etc it was awful)

Rant is justified chick x

Gatecrashing, but I agree with you completely.
It will come back and bite them though, like moonbean says, no reputable company will lend to someone with an IVA, so they will probably be paying stupid interest and the money will soon run out.
xx

Thanks mich - How funny being banned from JK and question time!
moonbeam - It never ceases to amaze me how people STILL manage to get credit, even with a bad credit rating. My DH used to miss the odd credit card bill before we got together (and I whipped him into shape of course!) and he was penalised so bad for it . Thats horrendous about the pensioners. If people are willing to pay 50% interest then thosecompanies will continue to run and be unethical.
xxxx

we weren't even the worst there was another company ( from memory I think they were called welcome finance) and they charged .... wait for it ....102% interest on their loans???!!!!!!

OMG - it's amazing thatthere are people out there that will consider paying it? I feel really sorry for the people that have no option but to use them, not through fault of their own that get stung by them! It's diabolicle!
Bedhead - I know, one day the tables will turn but it makes you wonder if they actually think further than their 2 week holiday or their brand new TV! xxx

Nope, they don't, because they don't have the mental capacity to see any further, what's worse is that they will always look for someone else to blame when it goes tits up :roll:
xx

Exactly! I feel like they are relying on others to fund their spending habits! You know, sometimes I wish I didn't have the mental capacity to worry about things like that! xxx

It makes you sick doesnt it.
RE interest rates the worst I have seen are Provident they are forever sending leaflets through my door.
272.2%

I didn't think you could get credit at all if you had an IVA?? My friend took one out a couple of years ago (because she absolutely had no other option) and they had every single penny they spend gone through with a fine toothed comb and agreed an amount to pay each month. They were told to keep their mortgage and their other creditors would be told to freeze interest etc. But they were told NO CREDIT for 5 years minimum... I don't get how these people are able to subsequently REDUCE their income AND get credit... takes the p*ss it really does. x

Jojo - thats what I didn't understand. They seem to have done the impossible and now his lovely wife doesn't have to work as they don't have any debt to pay back and there's ladies on here having to reduce their mat leave just to survive. IVA's are for exactly what your friend had. You have a financial advisor who will take every penny you have to make it work and if it doesn't then you have no option. They just did it online apparently. How are these companies operating? Is it actually legal??? xxx

Jojo - thats what I didn't understand. They seem to have done the impossible and now his lovely wife doesn't have to work as they don't have any debt to pay back and there's ladies on here having to reduce their mat leave just to survive. IVA's are for exactly what your friend had. You have a financial advisor who will take every penny you have to make it work and if it doesn't then you have no option. They just did it online apparently. How are these companies operating? Is it actually legal??? xxx

i completely agree with what your saying. I had a loan with welcome finace when I was 18 and when i realsied it should have finished i rang them up and they said oh yes once this payment has cleared you have finished paying (funny that,eh, im sure they would have carried on taking the money if i hadnt rang them!)
the interest wasnt that high tho but it was higher than nearly everywhere else! x

wannababy thats dispicable. Whats worryin gis there are plenty of people out ther that woudln't have realised it was due to finish and kept paying it like my nan or something! xx

well tbh i probably paid for longer than it should have been but i remember i got a statement (only ever got 1 from them) and seen how much was left and then a few months later i thought to myself, im sure that should be paid off by now!

These stories really annoy me! My OH and I are in such a terrible situtation now, we owe a frightening amount of money and cannot keep up with repayments. We made a go of keeping our business going through the recession and failed and lost everything so were forced to survive on credit, either that or claim bankruptcy and lose our house which we rented out and moved back in with family so we didn't have to sell it and make a loss!

Someone who worked for us racked up over ??20,000 of debt with drinking, taking drugs and online gambling. He took bankruptcy and got all of his debt written off. A few weeks before he took bankruptcy he opened a new bank account and got ??1000 overdraft knowing he was about to claim and he spent the ??1000 and just added it to the debt he got wiped off. Then when he was made bankrupt he got his rent and council tax paid for him, didn't have to pay back a penny of the thousands he owed AND got benefits. He carried on using his benefits to live the same lifestyle, he won a few thousand pounds playing online poker and didn't have to declare it or pay anything back from the money he had written off because winnings from gambling are tax free etc! Grrrrrr!

It is so annoying that some people can just spend money like water and then write it all off without a care in the world while people like us are struggling to pay the money back that we owe from just trying to survive!

I am really surprised they are getting any credit at all and it's so irreponsible that they are using it to go on frigging holiday!!!

I'm utterly confused.

Part of my job used to involve working with people who were up the swanny with credit, and were often having to sell their home (in negative equity!) or be repossessed.

An IVA doesn't write off your debts. You repay for a period of five years, a reduced amount based on you income as assessed at the time of the IVA being entered into, which is usually fixed. AFTER those five years, companies will generally write off the % of your debt that is not yet repaid. It doesn't get 'written off' from the word go, and you most certainly cannot get any form of substantial or reputable credit whilst you are in one, they destroy your credit rating. POssibkly a TV from Bright House, maybe a Visa with a ??500 limit from Vanquis, nothing big enough to fund a holiday to Egypt.

If they were declared bankrupt, which does write off a vast proportion of your debts, there would be no credit for years and years, they may well have lost their home if they had owned it, and most of their valuable possessions would have been seized to repay creditors, including cars over a certain value. Contributions are then paid from the bankrupt's income for the period of the bankruptcy (generally a year) based on an assessment of income and expenditure and disposable income.

In neither scenario would a party to the IVA or bankruptcy petitioner be in a position to give up work, as their income would have been taken into account when assessing the IVA payments/disposable income for seizure by administrators. If they ARE bankrupt, I'm sure their Official Receiver would be MIGHTY interested to know about their lavish break...

Basically, either your DH has grossly misinterpreted what this guy has said, or (more likely) the bloke is lying. Or maybe doesn't understand the restrictions of the agreement he has entered and is going to get a mighty big shock! If he's chucked this holiday on a card right before entering into an IVA, the card company could technically have him charged with fraud!

Sorry, just read that back and it honestly wasn't meant to sound confrontational, just that it struck me the guy was bullshitting as his story didn't add up, I wasn't having a go at you for relating it!

I agree that either way, he sounds like a prize knob!

[Modified by: MrsSetters on November 05, 2009 11:25 PM]

hi don't really ahve an opinion on this but as just reading out of interest, however just wanted to pick up on something mre setters said, my stepdad was made bankrupt (not IVA) this yr. they did not take his car ( a taxi) as that wld be taking away his ability to work, he can't vfery well get on a bus to taxi people about. also he was told at the time that his credit wld be reinstated with 6 months!!! yes 6 months none of us (inc him) cld beliebve it! they did say however that if he does take credit he does need to declare the bankruptcy for the next 5yrs! the six months is just up and he is recieving numerous phonecalls on a daily basis of ppl offering him loans, credit cards etc. who has had to tell to leaeve him alone,as he doesnt' want to go there again. (luckily the house was and always has been in my mums name as she owned it before they met, otheriwse they wld've made him sell it to pay off the debt). and just so u know he wasn't flitting money away willy nilly, he's a self employed taxi driver (hackney carriage not mini cab), for 15yrs so not just jumped into it, the cab is 10yrs old, so not like he spent all his money there eitehr, but with the recession no one was getting cabs and he and my mum were struggling, really strugglingn their outgoings far exceeded their incomes so they had no other choice.

anyway in short, u can get credit much sooner than said, but he was also told on the day he first registered for bankruptcy (about 3 months before the claim starts) that from that point u can no longer claim crdit, otherwise u can get in deep doo doo as mrs setters said. however i do know other ppl that have gone bankrupt, just before they did it they took money out on cards bought kids motorbikes, real motor bikes, went to florida, and because they had taken it out as cash, the companies had no idea what the items were so cldn't get them back from them, especially as they 'stored 'them at familys garages etc to get away with it, now taht does take the total pee! xx