Quick Loans

[PaphosAL]

I watch Discovery most afternoons for an hour, Wheeler Dealers etc. The ADs are beginning to scare me, with quick 'pay day' loans on offer at a mere (eye watering) 1350% APR!

Typical scenario: Mum and Dad and daughter coming out of a modern estate house, to drive daughter to school. Son, in his dressing gown, shouts out of the front door that there's no hot water for his shower.

Mum thinks rapidly and gets on her smartphone to arrange a Quick Quid loan and says to her son to not worry, you'll have to smell today, but she'll have someone around later to fix it...

Now I would have thought that such a family in such a house would have C/H cover in place for something like £15 a month, including an annual boiler service?

These adverts, IMHO, are criminal. Borrow the allowed £1,500 and after 12 months, you owe them over £30,000 ??? Insane...

AL

[Dominic]

In fairness to payday loans, you are supposed to pay them off when you get paid, so the interest you will be looking at is measured in days, rather than a year.

I would never use one myself. I would also drum into my kids the importance of having a financial buffer so that you don't ever have to. Save enough so that you have a cushion of 3 months salary easily to hand, and you will be able to cope with the vast majority of life's emergencies.

You can't blame people for being so glib with debt though I guess. Not when the whole country is up to it's neck in it. What is the National Debt these days?

[Firefly]

People may not realise that if they need a mortgage, one of the credit checks on them is to see if they have had pay day loans. Surely your bank would be the best place to start.

Jackie