Jerseygirl

It may be before your time but there used to be a huge roundabout there...around it was about half a dozen mini roundabouts. Talk about chaos!!

I was christened in St George's Church...not far from the main uni.

Brit3964

Some creditors will happily file a CCJ against you in a heartbeat while others take a more pragmatic approach. Good luck. Check your PMs.

sir_eccles

Of no help what so ever, just wanted to say "Rock Chalk JayHawk"

Carolina Tiger

Haha. Back at you mate.

fatbrit

They'll find it difficult if he's not resident. And the verdict can be quickly set aside should they lie about service.

Brit3964

And at the end of it all, the phrase "can't get blood out of a stone" applies.

fatbrit

Yep!

CCCS_Pavan

Hi Carolina Tiger,

I work for the CCCS in the UK and although we share the same name as the US ones, we are independent and operate quite differently as we are a registered charity.

I’d recommend that you keep your creditor updated on your situation. You’re right that they’ll probably pass it on to a collection agency and although they can, it’s quite unlikely that they’ll enforce the debt in the US.

They can follow the standard debt collection process, but if you let them know what’s going on, they’re unlikely to go for a county court judgement (CCJ) as it would be difficult to enforce in the US.

It will affect your credit rating in the UK, but if you don’t intend on returning in the foreseeable future, this isn’t an immediate problem for you.

The most important thing to remember is that you can’t offer them money that you can’t afford. Like others have mentioned, your priorities are the roof over your head and your other essential living expenditure. You can only offer them something if you have surplus money available after your priorities are paid.

You can send them a copy of your household budget as proof that you can’t afford to offer them anything at the moment. You could offer token payments, such as £1 per month until your situation improves.

If you’d like some more detailed advice on your situation you can call our helpline, which is +44 113 297 0126 from outside the UK.

I hope this helps

Kind regards,
Pavan

Michael

From my understanding, CCCS is the best of the bunch but is primarily used by people with a job but have a problem meeting their debt obligations and are therefore given consoling (eg. budgets) to try to pay down their debt. I believe they can also help in the negotiations of debt reductions and mortgage restructuring. Suze Orman and Dave Ramsey recommend CCCS if you need credit consoling but it will cost you money.

From my understanding many of the other debt restructuring companies use brutal tactics. First they get the debtor to make partial monthly debt payments to them and then they notify the creditors and collection agencies that they are representing you and you will no longer make debt payments unless the debt is restructured. Since you are using a debt restructuring company to negotiate debt and not paying your debt obligations, that is reported to the credit bureaus immediately ruining your credit. The hope is that creditors will relent within a year and restructure the debts with the debt restructuring companies keeping the partial monthly payments for their services and a new repayment schedule is agreed upon but your credit is totally ruined.

Therefore if you were to use a credit consoling service for debt restructuring (even CCCS), don't use a US company since once they represent you for debt restructuring of US debt, that will be reported to the US credit bureaus significantly hurting your US credit score even if debt payments are made on time. Using a US company to restructure UK debt may possibly also be reported to US credit bureaus and could possibly hurt your US credit score.

Anything the debt restructuring companies can do, you can do yourself with less damage to your credit score at no additional cost. However, like the debt restructuring companies, you have to remain firm in not paying debt obligations until the creditors agree to restructure the debts. Although the creditors or collection agencies may threaten to take you to court, that is normally just a scare tactic since you don't have the ability to meet the debt payments and you "can't get blood from a turnip".

Carolina Tiger

Thanks Michael

Brock

My wife works (employed for 6+ years) for the CCCS in Oklahoma City, they are a non-profit organization.

If you have a specific question/s I might be able to help out.

Carolina Tiger

When I was asking the question I was actually meaning the one in the UK as that is where my debt is and I don't want to ruin my US Credit Rating. It's so hard to build that up that I don't want to take a step back.

You could ask her is she knows if debts from the UK can be collected in the US?

Thanks Brock

Bob

There are threads on this...and really, unless we're talking huge sums, they just won't bother, but some do try it on....but the final result depends on which state you live in, some make it easier than others etc.

And not for profit organisations, that's just a tax dodge, many can and do rake the cash in and the heads can be making serious coin, even shit ones on the brink of bankruptcy such as the game devs association is paying the top dog around $150K a year to twiddle thumbs

Brock

I'll ask her, but I get the feeling she most likely won't know the answer to that one.

As a side note, I know from experience that it was almost impossible for me to transfer my perfect UK credit score to the US

Bob - fair point, but I get the impression that here in OKC the manager/heads etc don't make great money, not bad, just not great.

They are also (well here in the OKC) under a lot of pressure lately from the commercial debt counseling companies trying to pull the rug from under their feet, poaching staff, etc etc... CCCSOK let go about 30% of there staff not long ago as well...

Carolina Tiger

Thanks again Brock. Maybe she knows some financial expert there that might know.