Debt Free Direct  

Con artists. Make out they're there to help, then leave you with not enough money to even feed yourself.

Also moved 3.5yrs into the IVA and my rent increased. They refused to renegotiate with my creditors, failed my IVA and STOLE the £6.5k i'd already paid towards the IVA. Scum.

Had no problems during the six years of my VIA,I received my certificate nearly three years ago, at that time my creditors where all paid up.but in now seems they keep the case open in case you get any surprise money coming your way, like PPI.it seems they can do this for as long as they want,with no correspondence as to where the extra money went to after the creditors where paid up.just seems very odd,make sure you read the small print,or better still try the free debt recovery companies..

When the Financial Conduct Authority came into action in April 2014, they conducted a thorough investigation of Lawrence Charlton and all of their 14 associated Debt Management Brands. They found that LC were withholding just over £750,000 of their clients' money and have been holding it for many years. This is due to the fact that when they issues cheques and BACS payments to creditors, if any details are incorrect the payments are sent back. The issues with this is that LC have no process for what to do with that money when it is returned and so have been holding this money for years as it continues to grow. They are currently in the process of trying to return this money to their clients. Some people are being refunded pence, others thousands.

The issue with this is that they are not telling their clients that in accordance to UK Financial Laws, their clients are entitled to claim interest on this money for the length of time it has been held for at the current rate of interest set by the Bank of England.

I urge anyone who has any affiliation with Lawrence Charlton, Debt Free Direct, the Fairpoint Group and any of their affiliated brands to get in touch with them and request your money back plus the interest you are legally owed.

I've seen the underhanded and deceitful lengths they will go to in order to cover up the truth. Please get in touch with them as you have nothing to lose and a lot to gain.

Where is Debtfree Direct according to companies they are in liquidation since 1/9/17
wheres all my money gone especially the last £400 paid 25/9/17

Ive never been treated so badly in my life .i thought that going with would take away the stress and worrie of thing away from me but its been the werst 7+years of my life .i signed a contract dont know why as your broke the arrangement in the first week or so i payed you 5000 pound what for i ask myself ??? ..ive never been to a meeting or asked about things ive been told what going to happen ever been accused of winner lump sum to pay off my mortgage .realy that all you needed to do was lean to count .. Ive tryed to pay this month payment again phone number not in service .joke . never had a yearly statment . only paper work had was wrong ..
Dont know why im sending this as its a wast of time ..
Ms R Turner

Do not trust these people, they only want your money, the communication is terrible after the Honeymoon, once they have you and its getting close to the end then the issues start, missed calls unable to get a response when calling back, they have even changed the number that we had to search the internet for, I feel they want the IVA to fail as they then keep the money and the original debt (less a pittance they have paid them of about 41p in the pound) still exists.
Had debts of £15000 and have paid £13000 inc PPI payments and in our last year, have been told we have arrears of £8100 (down to their poor communication), add that to what we paid thats £21000 we have to pay - that's hardly writing off up to 65% of your debt as per their advertising.
I have wasted my time complaining to their complaints department and got nothing barring a thank you and in due course message, I am now going to the financial Ombudsman

Complete help throughout my stressful situation from Debt free Direct that helped me get my life back

Do not under any circumstances use these people they are very friendly setting up your IVA but after paying £228 a month for five years without missing a payment they then wanted to sell my house and because there wasn't enough equity in it they extended my payments for another year, then after 6 years they wanted income proof from my ex wife so after telling them for the hundreth time we had got divorced just after taking out the IVA i managed find her and send them wage slips and pay slips i finished six years of payments.
Please do not go anywhere near these people they will take your money and there will still be no end in sight, it's over 7 years now and they are still saying i am in breach of the agreement because i didn't send a ppi pack back but i had so i did it all for them again, now they are sending me threatening letters again saying i am in breach but do not say why and that i need to phone them, so i phone them and they do not answer you just cannot get through so i email them and they send automated message that says they will be in touch in 5 days but it never happens.
They are a complete nightmare and will go out of there way to ruin your life so stay away unless you want to go through 7 years of this and make all the payments and still be threatened with being made bankrupt

I felt like I was hitting a brick wall until I was put in touch dfd they sorted everything out for me and took a lot of my worries and stress away

Excellent service friendly staff who don't judge you and help you every step of the way I've just entered into an Iva could not fault service

I recieved great support, sound advice and care in helping me through a complicated process. The staff were very polite and considerate, at all times. I highly recommend the company.

Such good service always there to help and give you all the options available.

If you have PPI offset to your debts, do NOT under any circumstances put this into your final settlement. Find out how much it is and then make an offer minus your PPI otherwise Debt Free Direct will keep the money for themselves.

I was unaware of this and offered to pay 100% or 100 pence to the pound as they like to call it for my IVA. The closure itself is a complete pain in the *ss as Debt Free Direct are not helpful at all and will drag out the process for as long as possible.

Now 6 months after they allegedly paid the creditors I am getting statements from the creditors showing that nothing has been paid in for the last year! I asked them to show me proof that they actually did pay my creditors and wasn't even given an answer to my question.

When you call DFD up about this, all they would do is send out paperwork to say that the IVA is closed off, and you can kiss your PPI refund goodbye. They will keep it to themselves and steal your money. They stole nearly £5,300 from me this way!

My parents also transferred money to me and mistakenly put it in the account that is in the IVA. As this was supposed to be a surprise for me I didn't know until afterwards. Even though they asked for a refund a month after Debt Free Direct allegedly paid the overdraft on the account, my parents are unable to reclaim the money as the account is still in arrears.

Debt Free Direct cannot be trusted, their staff don't know anything. They will be friendly and helpful when you are setting up your IVA, but once they have gotten hold of you, don't expect anything from them except to pay more than they told you for doing nothing at all.

Sorry for long review but has to be said. Ok so we set up for an iva, at first they were great, helpful and made us feel very comfortable. Finally we thought ,we have our debts under control. How wrong we was. Our financial situation changed and so we had to stop our payments of £200 a month as my hours changed at work and had my hours reduced, called them to let them know of our circumstances, however being put on hold for over an hour we gave up. So i sent email after email, with the standard we will reply 5days time. Guess what, no reply. Eventually we just had to give in and call them. 1 hour and 20 minutes later someone answers the phone, finally got to discuss our financial situation and was asked to do another income and expenditure sheet and to call back with the information. So we call back, again on hold for 45 minutes to over n hour. When we get through, we were told someone would call us back. No one did, then we recieve a letter saying if our IVA isnt resolved they threatened to close it. So we called back, this time they got their act together as apparently departments had changed and call times are now shorter, 20 minute wait, big improvement. However no improvement on customer service. We explained the letter, that no one called back and so fourth to be told again someone will call back. We had one missed call, due to me being at work and my partner just having a baby wasnt able to get to the phone. To then get another phone call at another inappropriate time. We call back, and told yet again someone will call back as by this time our IVA had been passed to the breach team. Again no call back, then recieve a letter saying our IVA is due to be closed. We call back with income and expenditure to hand, ready to give to them only to be told that they cannot do anything to help as our IVA is set to cancel. After going back and fourth of me arguing the lack of communication and no call backs and failure to answer emails etc, and the woman on the phone being quite rude. A few expletives were shared and i hung up. Now we are back to square one and dont know where to go next. Do not go with this company, great setting up but when it comes to customer service, they are useless. Dont end up in the same boat as we are.

Do not trust dfd never answer call double your payments for no reason. I never missed a payment and they extended from 5 to 6 years. Please do not trust this company.

Excellent service very helpful explained everything along the way very helpful .

Brilliant service helped me sort everything so grateful 😀

Dfd are great at setting up the Iva and great at making you feel they will look after you. In reality they are great upon the point of closure. I have paid my full 5 years in full. I get paid half the money I got from employment 5 years ago due to redundancy. But still I have paid the original monthly payment with no reductions as like anyone in an Iva the thought of an extension doesn't bare thinking of. Anyway paid in full. Phoned up to ask how the closure is going a month after closure month. They said they couldn't close it due to me owing £196 even though I paid £207 a month for 60 months. Annoyed they didn't let me know. Paid it anyway as it's not the end of the world, I can take that. Now they are saying they sent me a PPI pack in 2011 which I have not done. So it can't be closed until PPI is claimed back by them. When I voiced my concerns over the phone the customer service rep put the phone down on me. They made great money out of me and I am supposed to have my certificate like agreed. Do not trust these guys it's all about how much money they can squeeze out of a client regardless to the massive extension in time this creates. Thanks guys

Really helpful and always there to answer any questions

Complete peace of mind and trust worthy