I have for the past two months, January & February 2010 received a phone call from Mercers/Calders on behalf of Barclaycard regarding one or both of my credit cards with them. They have been ringing my home phone and my mobile phone, leaving messages and they have even resorted to sending me text messages.

I have been getting regular text messages from Barclaycard stating that if I do not call them back, they may be forced to take legal action to recover the debt.

Now I know what you’re thinking, that sounds quite bad or scary, huh? Well guess what, they have been sending me these text messages for two months, surely if they were going to take legal action they would have done so by now? It’s quite funny to think that Barclaycards debt recovery process is a complete sham, the boy who cried wolf you could say ;-)

So yes, I think I am most definitely the victim of creditor harrassment, I’m not too worried about it. When I do eventually speak to them, I will state my position that I do feel like I’ve been harrassed by them and am in fact seeking legal action, which I will most likely do just to clarify my position and create a case against them.

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Mine were. I had some very difficult times after my mortgage business failed, I didn’t have an income and I felt completely helpless about the situation…that is until I took control.

That is the key thing to do. Take action, no matter what action it is, just do something positive about your situation as that will get you on a roll, and before you know it you are solving the problems, even if only bit by bit, by taking small steps you will slowly get yourself out of whatever hole you are in.

I don’t neccessarily advocate working bit by bit to pay off all of your debts, as that can seem like a very daunting task. No, the first thing anyone who has serious debts must do is to communicate the situation with their creditors, let them know that you can no longer afford the repayments and that you wish to make reduced payments.

Your creditors will whine and moan about the fact and they will no doubt hassle you to pay more, but at the end of the day they have to give you time to get yourself back on your feet financially speaking. Use this six month period to cut your personal costs, get your finances under control and then only if you can properly afford to go back to paying full repayments do you go back to that.

If after six months you cannot afford to go back to full payments, simply ask for your payment holiday to be extended whilst you seek an alternative to repaying the debts back, either an IVA, full and final settlement or if things are very tricky, you may have to consider bankruptcy – but only as a last resort!

Remember though, although it may be shamefull being severely in debt and you may be worried about what other people think, do not get down about your situation, it can only improve – it can’t get any worse can it?

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According to the article, there has been a 24% rise in the number of applications by creditors for third party debt orders.

So how does a “third party debt order” work? Simply put, if a creditor has a judgement for payment awarded in their favour, the creditor can seek a third party debt order if the debtor fails to pay the amounts as per the judgement order.

This debt order could then mean that anyone that owes you (the debtor) money, could have to pay the money directly to the creditor that has obtained the third party debt order, with the remaining balance being paid back to you as the debtor. This would mean you would have no way of wriggling out of paying a debt once the creditor had obtained a county court judgement against you.

This must be a frightening prospect for anyone that thought they could get away with ignoring a CCJ and hoping that eventually the creditor would give up, if I knew that as a creditor I could obtain a third party debt order, I would most certainly use it to ensure I got my money back.

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However, I appreciate that there are a number of people out there that may not want to tarnish there credit rating by defaulting on their debts and subsequently settling a year or so down the line.

There are ways of writing off your debts that don’t involve a full and final settlement, for instance you may have a case for your agreement being unenforceable if the agreement was made a number of years ago. There are a number of companies out there that claim to specialise in UCA’s – unenforcable credit agreements – if you chose to use one, make sure they are on a “no win, no fee” deal as from my understanding of it, only about a small percentage of claims will be viable.

If you are not interested in blemishing your credit file and your debts are not unenforceable, then there are still ways of clearing your debts quicker that can be looked into.

The best thing to consider if you have multiple creditors is to work out which is the most expensive debt, by way of the interest rate. Once you have ordered your creditors by their interest rate, simply target all of your spare cash each month on the most expensive debt.

This will get that cleared off quickest, then use the money you would have normally paid on the minimum payment, plus the excess that you have been paying and focus on the next most expensive debt, repeating the process until all of your debts have been cleared.

This method will ensure that over the life of your debts you have minimised the amount of interest you paid, and maximised the amount of capital that you could repay to your creditors.

If you are seriously struggling with your debts and cannot meet your monthly repayments, then you should consider speaking to a debt advisor about a possible debt management plan.

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• The credit crunch and subsequent reduction in availability of credit
• The recession which has meant many job losses and reduction in household income
• Rising household costs thanks to rising fuel and food costs

There is always a bit of stigma attached to suffering with financial difficulties, I have certainly felt that way and I am by no means an overly emotional person, so I can well imagine it would severly dent the pride of some people.

However, I would say to anyone out there that is feeling that way, don’t panic! My good friend up in London who works in wholesale banking was most sympathetic when I told him of my plight. He can quite understand as he has seen many of the banks clients default on their loans with them. This has simply been the affect of the credit crunch and subsequent recession and it is nothing to feel ashamed about.

So if you are struggling with debt, the first bit of advice is do not panic. The second bit of advice is to ask yourself a few questions. Would you really care if you did go bankrupt or went through an IVA? These are the quickets solutions to get you out of debt and stop anymore creditor hassle.

They are most definitely the course of action that will have the worst repercussion on your credit file however, so any decision must not be taken lightly.

If you don’t wish to pursue either bankruptcy or an IVA, then you must consider a debt management plan. I would recommend you use this website, help me get ouf of debt to see how little you could pay under a debt management plan.

Once you get yourself into a debt management plan, it would be worthwhile scraping some capital together which you can later use as a full and final settlement with your creditors. If you have read my earlier article about settling debts for 28.5% of the balance remaining you will see that it is both possible to settle debts for much less than you owe, though it is a process that takes time and requires nerves of steel, along with a fair amount of negotiation skills to boot!

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