Long story short I entered into a dmp with Harrington Brooks in March 2012. I paid every month from conception of the plan in full without missing a payment or paying late etc. When letters from my creditors (6 credit card companies) kept coming and phonecalls saying I needed to make payments etc. I chased HB and was repeatedly fobbed off with a variety of excuses. Two of my debts were sold on to Aktiv Kapital (who have been very helpful in helping me to ascertain exactly what has been happening) another was passed into the management of Mercers (Barclaycard's in house company I believe). After much investigating into what was happening I discovered, to my horror that Harrington Brooks had failed to make payments as agreed with my creditors. That's not to say they didn't may ANY payments - they did - but in most instances they were less than the agreed amount and were not made within agreed timescales. So some of my creditors received nothing for weeks on end and then received a token gesture payment. Occasionally they were paid more than the agreed amount - but only after weeks of non-payment into the plan. When I found out what was happening I binned off Harrington Brooks and dealt with my creditors directly myself. Some of them will not now allow me to set up a "formal" arrangement because for the last 12 - 18 months in their eyes I have not stuck to previous agreed formal arrangements. One in particular has said that I will not now be able to set up such an agreement with them for the next 5 years. My credit rating rather than improving has deteriorated because of their mis-management. As a result of all of the above I wrote to the company concerned making a formal complaint. They admitted they had made mistakes and offered me £150 ex gratia payment as a gesture of goodwill. I declined this and took my complaint to the financial ombudsman. An adjudicator from their service found in my favour and advised that the DMC should pay me over £3k which they have calculated to include interest and charges added to my debts, amount paid into my plan by me less the amount paid out to my creditors from the plan, a nominal amount for "distress and inconvenience suffered". It was recommended that this be settled by the third week in March. The deadline came and went and the DMC asked for - and were given - an extension in order to complete their investigations. Harrington Brooks complained that they were not able to check the facts given because I have now revoked their authority to deal with my creditors. The information given was backed up by the information the adjudicator had accumulated during her enquiries - supported by documentary evidence provided by the credit card companies and Aktiv Kaptial and Mercers. The second deadline has now passed and the fos adjudicator is trying to contact the case handler at Harrington Brooks but that person is "unavailable". A colleague has said that they will look at my case if they can. Meanwhile the deadline has been extended again to the end of this week. I am informed that if Harrington Brooks do not agree with the adjudicators recommendations that I have the option to have my case put in front of the Ombudsman but that can take months and months - currently 6 - 9 months. I am shocked to discover how many other people have suffered in a similar way with Harrington Brooks but have not tried to get their money back from them. Some people have passed comment that I should have used one of the free services. At the time I employed Harrington Brooks my stepson was in hospital and very nearly died, there was a huge amount of stress and they were highly recommended by a friend of a friend (who I later found out had been given £100 in Tesco's vouchers for her recommendation) and they assured me that they would do a better job than the free service and quicker since they were being paid. I am also self employed with limited the options from the free services. I would be interested to hear directly from anyone who has had a similar experience with Harrington Brooks who can back up their account with full documentary evidence. There may be scope for a collective complaint to higher authorities - which is something I am currently investigating.