Some years ago I had several credit cards and used to engage in card surfing - opening a new card and transfer the balance of another one to it, so I could enjoy the interest free period. Life was all right and I was managing my repayments. Then disaster struck, I closed my sliding car door over my thumb at a moment of stress, and could not work for about four months. As a self employed carpenter that was really bad news.

Shortly before that had happened I had taken a month off and landscaped my back garden and built a garden office. I used the cards to pay for this indulgence, as I did not see any problem in managing the outlays.

After I was back to work I suddenly had much higher monthly figures to deal with and I struggled for some months, trying to juggle it all, but finally realized I just can't go on like this. I started getting phone calls day and night with threats of getting dragged into court. So I started contacting the lenders trying to make an arrangement for lower payments or an interest free period or something. But I was met with little cooperation.

One lender suggested a Debt management Service and I got in touch with them and set up a plan with a payment I could afford at the time I think I was overly optimistic with my repayments but I was under stress then and I had not really worked out what I could actually afford.

But when a year had passed I had managed to meet my payments, but not set aside any money for my tax, so I had to lower my monthly figure. Then some of the lenders started to charge interest again the calls started again and I soon realized that the debt was now growing. This debt management company had not done what they promised to do which was write letters to the creditors and stop them harassing me and my family and help me on an on going repayment plan.

And soon the letters started come from Debt collectors again. I since found that a lot of debt management companies do not do what they say they will do they do not stop the harassment. The worst was the door step collectors sent by the debt collectors.

My wife suggested I declare bankruptcy, and I was looking into that. But then a friend of mine told me about kill the debt collector tool kit. There was another way to deal with debt collectors and the threats. As a result I bought a product that gave me a few easy steps to do in order to stop the calls, threats and harassment. Now I had tools on how to deal with these, and it worked. First I stopped the phone calls and put the debt collectors in their place, this I enjoyed although the first time I did this I have to admit I was very nervous.

I started to use these tools, by writing to the various debt management companies the suggested letters as per the templates given, and I got all kinds of threatening letters back. Then resent them with my invoice per the notice of my fee schedule. (I started actually having fun) I realised that the debt management companies relied on my fear but now that’s was gone along with the stress!

The calls stopped. The letters stopped and the threats stopped. Two debt collectors “sold” the debt to yet another debt collector they started chase me. I sent the same letters to them. They stopped calling and then stopped sending letters. I then went to the Step Two as suggested in the tool kit. This reduced my outgoes on loans by 85%. If I had not waited so long to act on this I would not have had the door step collector arrive.

It is now almost a year and a half since I started doing this, and to this date no “lender” or “debt collector” has taken me to court. Some were harder to get rid of than others, but in the end they all give up – if you do the right thing.

This is a true solution and it has saved me from bankruptcy and allowed me to get more control over my life again. I am truly grateful for this information. Thank you.

K B
Crawley, East Sussex.