Don't Pay UK

Whilst I understand, and fully support, the need to make a stance against soaring energy prices, Don't Pay UK should be stopped in its tracks immediately. Destroying your credit profile should be the last resort. Even one missed payment impacts your ability to obtain a mortgage. The trade-off here is potentially saving up to £100 per month on the average household energy bill, but seeing your mortgage payments soar by hundreds of pounds per month because your credit rating has plummeted. How can this be considered a good thing? Banks don't care if you were 'making a stance,' if you miss one payment or more you will potentially end up paying higher interest rates not only on new credit cards, loans and car finance, but also life's biggest debt, your mortgage. Education is vital, and Don't Pay UK have absolutely no warnings about the ramifications of what they asking millions of UK households to do. It's shambolic.

Don't get sucked in to the hype. It's totally scandalous what's happening with utility bills and we have a government that's not only asleep at the wheel but appears to be actively trying to crash the car with everyone in it. Flushing your credit score down the toilet and reducing your ability to get finance, or at the very least make any finance you can get significantly more expensive, is not the answer. I don't really see any way the current situation isn't going to end up, short of people marching in the streets later this year. Keep your powder dry until then but for now don't knacker your. credit score.

If you choose not to pay your energy bill from October onwards, you will be destroying your credit profile, plain and simple. Each missed payment makes it harder and harder to obtain any form of credit and those lenders happy to consider you will charge higher rates than you can get elsewhere. Once you have six consecutive missed payments your account will be placed in default, you will then find credit even harder and more expensive to obtain. Once defaulted, the next step would be for the energy company to obtain a County Court Judgment against you, again hitting your ability to get credit and the cost of it. Given that your credit profile looks at the past six years you are potentially going to be paying more for any mortgage, loan, car finance, or credit card long after the energy crisis is old news. Please be very careful not to end up creating an even bigger and more costly problem for yourself in the long run.

We all get the sentiment of the Don't Pay UK movement, but people are not being informed of the risks it poses to them in the long run. Utility providers feed data into the credit reference agencies so we are going to see a growing number of missed payments and maybe even Defaults and CCJs being added to people's credit reports. Once these are on your credit report they stay there for six years, which will almost certainly impact any credit application. The end result of this is either the rates will be more expensive or the application is rejected altogether. Therefore, people should think really hard about this before making their decision about being part of this movement.

From a mortgage perspective, not paying any debt can have a serious downside when trying to move house or remortgage. Lenders take a dim view about people who have gone into arrears, however noble their cause. Unfortunately I don't think enough attention is being drawn to the potential impact this could have on people's credit reports.

Don't do it. Full stop. You've entered a contract and agreed to pay a bill every month. It's what you signed up for. If you have a late payment, this will affect your credit score and will affect your ability to borrow money at the most competitive rates. Lenders will penalise you on the rate for future borrowing, which will ultimately increase your outgoings, which goes against the whole point of the campaign. If you're struggling to pay your energy bills, contact the energy company in question to make a payment plan or review your tariffs.

"Whilst I can understand why so many people are struggling to pay the bills and that the government must do more to help, stopping your direct debit simply isn't advisable. Not only can your credit rating suffer, meaning higher borrowing costs, but the energy company can try and force you to have a pay-as-you-go meter. If in real trouble, it is always best to talk to the company involved to see if a payment plan can be arranged.