Sunday 2 December 2012

Payday Loan sharks.

Been reading about Payday Loan companies in the 'Sunday Mirror' today. The actions of the one mentioned are unbelievable. Basically the firm Cheque Centre offers loans at a massive APR of over 1000% and advertises it's loans at '£25 charged per £100 borrowed'. This makes companies such as Wonga and Quickquid look cheap. However, it is not the high interest rates that is the real shocker, but the fact that they will raid your bank account into which the loan is paid up to 6 times A DAY if you are late with a payment and they will take everything that you have in the account o clear the debt.
So what are the UK Govt. doing about it ?. Sweet FA as usual. They have no interest in the way these legal loan sharks operate (at the moment). There is however, something those who are desperate-enough to use their services can do to limit their losses.
By setting-up a 2nd account with another Bank?Building Society and having their wages or benefits paid into that, then transferring the monthly loan payment amount (or whatever they can afford) across to the account that the loans provider has on file by direct withdrawal and deposit in branch rather than via online transfer in order to keep untraceability between the 2 accounts, they will be able to make sure that they have sufficient money to live on whilst the Loan Company can never take more money out than the linked account holds.

What makes the Cheque Centre the worst of the worst is the fact that it's preferred customer demographic are those on benefits as they know that such people are likely to have trouble paying their loan off so will keep borrowing more and more thus generating them a huge profit in the process. So rather than helping those who are in financial hardship, they are actually adding to the problem.

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