Sunday 17 February 2013

Trading On Peoples Misery

If you ever find yourself at home during the day, you can't fail to see the array of advertisements for payday loans and the new boy on the block, fast log book loans where they state you can 'UNLOCK CASH FROM YOUR CAR WITH A FAST LOGBOOK LOAN, BORROW UP TO £50,000 WITH NO CREDIT CHECKS, LOGBOOK LOANS QUOTE TAKES JUST 30 SECONDS!
and with a shorter time than it takes to boil the kettle, you are in debt to one of the parasites that are blighting our TV screens and of course, in the small print and hidden away on the website it states 'A Log Book loan is secured against your vehicle, which may be repossessed if you do not make payment'.
The Citizens Advice Bureau is urging the trading watchdog to use new powers to stop payday lenders in their tracks, providing a dossier of the worst firms that are 'exacerbating debt problems and causing significant distress' by using methods such as inflating their fees charges, chasing people for debts on loans which they had never taken out, continuing to take money when debts have been paid off and firms preventing customers from making repayments online or over the phone and then slapping them with a charge for late repayment.
Most of us an see what these payday loan people are up to, targeting and taking advantage of innocent people who are in a debt crisis already and ramping it up. The way these companies profit out of the misery of the poor is disgraceful and unethical because they prey on people who are not managing on their income and so borrow short term until their next wage, which is obviously going to be a downward spiral of misery.
I have heard the argument that that it is the fault of the people who take out the loans but that would be like saying a drug addict has only himself to blame if you offer him a fix and he takes it. If you put temptation in the way of a desperate person, they are going to take it.
So why are the Government not stepping in to protect the exploited?
Say hello to Adrian Beecroft, adviser on employment policy to the Government and he just happens to be the Chairman of Dawn Capital who is a major shareholder in of  Wonga Group, the largest payday lender in the UK and a major donor to the Tory party, having handed over £593,000 since David Cameron became leader.
In case you missed that, an adviser to the Government on employment policy is the man whose company makes his fortune by offering extortionate loans to struggling families but that conflict of interest must have been lost in the noise of that cheque for over half a million winging it's way into the Tory bank account.  
The financial website moneysupermarket.com said there had been a 130% increase in the number of payday loans taken out in 2012 compared with last year and that is a lot of people being driven into destitution and even suicide by these nasty leeches trading on the poorest in societies misery.

2 comments:

Liber - Latin for "The Free One" said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Lucy said...

There has been an explosion of pawn shops in my area recently, i expect they are doing a brisk business.

Sometimes people need saving from themselves, easy credit is a scourge.