I declared myself BR on May 13th 2008 interview 4.6.08.
I did make enquieries re IVA but was told that I didn't have enough excess income.
I decided togo BR, my friend did this last year and on her advise I exhausted all my credit during march and april. My payments had always been on time and sometimes more than the min its just that I reused my credit. Most of my 24k debt was from living beyond my means. Upon deciding to go BR for a fresh start I decided not to make my April payments so my last payments was march and although I didn't take on new debt I did increase my debt by using my cards in april (to exhaust credit) How do you think this will look getting a bit worried after reading a post about fraud procecution.
If you have deliberately used credit in the knowledge that you would not be able to pay it back, then this is something that the OR is likely to be concerned about and could result in either a BRU and a BRO - but it will depend upon how much was spent in the great scheme of your overall debts.
For an informal chat about any financial difficulties, or advice as to the options available, I can be contacted via my website - www.melaniegiles.com
I did the same when I went BR Tess. That's what most of us do we use all our cards and overdrafts then we find out that credit card and overdraft say no. Then you realise if you want to eat and pay the electric and gas etc you have to stop paying credit cards.