Banks make debt too easy

raven_3

It's awful - part of the reason my OH is only 23 and in 20k worth of debt. Okay, so nobody forces the money down our throats, but for young and naive it's especially dangerous because there's always this 'oh well, I can easily pay that off later' attitude.

For instance, we're really trying to get his debts in order now and thought it might be a good idea to have a seperate bank account for his spending money - so he could have a debit card and not worry about overspending from his bills money. Seemed like a good idea, until I found out they'd given him a £500 overdraft without even asking

climbgirl

raven wrote:

Seemed like a good idea, until I found out they'd given him a £500 overdraft without even asking

You can actually stop this kind of thing (with some banks anyway). I rang my bank (HSBC) and told them that I didn't want any kind of loan offers, marketing mail, automatic credit limit/overdraft increases without me asking for them. I've been with them for a year now and they've stuck to it. There's some kind of 'opt-out' box on my record that they checked. They tried to talk me out of it of course, but I held firm!

Worth a try anyway.

Annie_Fanny

Now this is a long time ago...now let me think...1998 I had just finished uni....i thought to myself 'right the banks will be contacting me soon to arrange a review' so I might as well just go down there myself.

This was before I realised that they are just purely motivated by profit.

Basically they offered me a credit card. I either did not have a job or had a low paying one at that. I say 'no thnks'. They said 'have a credit card'. I said 'no thanks'. They said 'have a credit card'. I said 'no thanks'. After a while I got worn down and just said 'ok'. As soon as it was delivered I cut it up on the advice of my dad. So glad I did that!

B*stards! They dressed it up in a way to pay my petrol costs or whatever - the fact I didn't have a car didn't seem to bother them!

ARGH!

Donedoingdebt

All the banks have any loyalty to are their shareholders. All the rest of us mugs are there to be fleeced out of every penny that we own.

MoaningMyrtle

The other day when I was in the Abbey National paying in a couple of Ebay cheques, the girl at the counter next to me withdrew something like £2.35 in cash from her account and then asked the clerk 'Do you have to have a job to get a credit card?' The clerk said something like 'let me make you an appointment to see someone about it' She was obviously desperate.

jesster_2

MoaningMyrtle wrote:

The other day when I was in the Abbey National paying in a couple of Ebay cheques, the girl at the counter next to me withdrew something like £2.35 in cash from her account and then asked the clerk 'Do you have to have a job to get a credit card?' The clerk said something like 'let me make you an appointment to see someone about it' She was obviously desperate.

God that's really sad. WOnder how long it is before we meet her on here!

fizzel81

this is how we found ourselves in so much, barclays kept offering us loans which we took with intention of paying cc off of course when we paid the cards off we just used them again, as i online banked with them the loans took hours to sort out, takeing out the loan and paying a small repayment seemed like such a good idea at the time but it soon adds up, as soon as you are in trouble they dont want to know and are quick to default you

Peppa_Pig_5

I totally agree, it is too easy to get into debt. My catalogue have just increased my credit limit to £5500. That is such a huge amount to have for a catalouge, it makes me so mad. In my previous life, I would have been soooo tempted, but not anymore.

My friend and her husband have always been applying for loan after loan and I know they are not doing very well financially. They have just applied for another one and got turned down, where do they turn to after that. That is the point I believe when meeting payments gets harder and harder. I hope they have their lightbulb moment soon and come on here.

Glad I found this site when I did.

Peppa
x

paul10mm

banks dont care one bit about you as a customer they want you to stay in long term debt,some of us got in debt through not being able to turn the offers down, some because we lived beyond our means and now worst of all some just to make ends meet.When i got the right advice tho only sensible thing i could do was go bankrupt even though i was still uo to date with my accounts and still had £25k on cards i could have used to pay there monthly payments!! I use to live just to pay intrest to these people 60 hours a week going futher in to debt and what do i still get in the post even know??Have a Loan!! i would laugh if it was not so sad!