Everyone I know is sinking under a decade of DEBT..

MRSTITTLEMOUSE

bendix wrote: »

I have no debt. What should I do?

Me neither,I feel left out again :rotfl:.

JoeCrystal

Well, I used to have student debt from my uni days but I managed to pay that off... Are there any statistic on how many people in UK got debts?

Surely with mortgages and such, the number of people with debts are higher than people without debts?

pbryd

purch wrote: »

You can join my Debtless club. :T

£ 500.00 in 25 easy instalments of £25.00 :eek:

erm... but that's £625

StevieJ

pbryd wrote: »

erm... but that's £625

You are learning well, interest I think they call it

lionelator

mostlycheerful wrote: »

Well go and live in France or Dubai, you get locked up for years if you pass a bad cheque or rob your credit card, nice. Breaking rocks in the hot sun on the chain gang, that'll learn 'em manners, innit.

However apparently UK is just so stinking rich that anyone is legally allowed to rob their credit cards, loans, overdrafts and any lines of credit they can get. An interesting way of doing things seeing as the gross excess of robbery has caused world wide credit crunch recession which all the hard working taxpaying citizens are paying through the nose for. Yes, in crime-pays-UK the streets are paved with gold and you can nick as much as you like with impunity, so still the madness continues full tilt with no sign of abating. An amazing system, actually.

You would've thought that the whole thing would grind to a halt with the millions of people piling in grabbing as much as they can all the time and often recklessly, insanely, living way beyond their means. Just living on the never never without a care in the world. And not applying any normal sensible financial control over their compulsive run away overspending. No work ethic, no saving up to get what you want, no, just write some rubber cheques and rob the plastic, easy peasy, robbing banks has never been such a cinch. No wonder all the poor starving foreigners want to come to the land of milk and honey where the streets are paved with gold. It's an incredible spectacle, totally weird and out of control.

Yes, millions of people often just blithely totally frauding it and then walking away from their debts when they become unsustainable. With complete impunity. Just walk away. Or if you've got some assets to preserve then sign a couple of bits of paper and go bankrupt for six months. Then start the whole same process all over again. Amazing. Legal robbery, free money for all.

Still, it's a redistribution of wealth from the hard working taxpayers to the useless mindless thieves so the commies would probably argue that that's a good thing that the wicked capitalists playing it by the book have to pay for all the worthless parasite criminals.

Yes, go and do that in France or Dubai and see what happens to you, your feet wouldn't touch the ground. And lots of other countries as well. Strange that UK is so degenerate, has no standards, anything goes, no one cares, the taxpayers always pick up the tab and the evil proliferates everywhere, all the time. Incredible. How odd. What on earth is going on? Stealing isn't stealing any more, it's normal and you're just a mug if you don't grab yours. Etc for another 100 pages.

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/markets/the_gulf/article5663618.ece

Strange, these people clearly havent read your post.
Theres a saying somewhere about neighbour's grass, something about the colour green....
Just imagining things about places to make them seem better than the place you live in doesnt always work.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jul/23/dubai-safi-qurashi

Then theres this poor Brit, jailed for 7 bleeding years for bouncing a cheque given as security and that was never meant to be cashed as a deal was completed, the cheque was purely security. Thats what happens when theres no real law and order. Jailed, with the local justice system not giving him a chance to explain. 7 years, seeing his wife and kids once a week.

And youre here telling us about how the system works so much better elsewhere. Just a little research avoids much egg on your face.

michaels

Says more about you?

rich744 wrote: »

Everyone I know is sinking under a decade of DEBT..

Negative real interest rates and no debt - its economics 101 for you...

bendix wrote: »

I have no debt. What should I do?

Brewsters Millions?

WHITEVANMAN wrote: »

A colleague I once worked alongside, hadnt paid his income taxes for the best part of 15 years although he did submit his returns, every now and again he would make token payments in a fresh agreement, eventually the hmrc decided to go for bankruptcy, as soon as he discovered this he furnished his girlfriends home on credit, maxed out 3 credit cards on holidays and luxuries and then moved to a flat which was furnished on a short term let.
Debt cleared, no consequence, no take back, and after a year was back in his comfy home and quite proud of his efforts :mad:

mostlycheerful

lionelator wrote: »

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/markets/the_gulf/article5663618.ece

Strange, these people clearly havent read your post.
Theres a saying somewhere about neighbour's grass, something about the colour green....
Just imagining things about places to make them seem better than the place you live in doesnt always work.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jul/23/dubai-safi-qurashi

Then theres this poor Brit, jailed for 7 bleeding years for bouncing a cheque given as security and that was never meant to be cashed as a deal was completed, the cheque was purely security. Thats what happens when theres no real law and order. Jailed, with the local justice system not giving him a chance to explain. 7 years, seeing his wife and kids once a week.

And youre here telling us about how the system works so much better elsewhere. Just a little research avoids much egg on your face.

You misread my comment. As you can see if you read it clearly at the end of paragraph 2 I say "an amazing system, actually", both amazing that such a thing should be possible, ie that you can just rip off banks and get away with it, and amazing as in amazingly good. What you need to try to understand is that the point is that in UK you can borrow as much as you want and not even pay it back and the taxpayers keep paying to support that system. So it's rough on the taxpayers having to support the thieves but it's great for all the thieves.

Yes, I read all the recent Dubai stuff and what you failed to read or mention is the website set up by the bloke's 11 year old daughter, or so it says except that it's clearly written and laid out by adults, begging for her dad to be released. What you also fail to understand is that when you bounce cheques in Dubai it's a crime and just saying you thought someone else had paid some money into your account but in fact they didn't doesn't cut any ice and is no excuse and you get banged up if you try that kind of sketch. In UK the worst you'd get for the rip off this character did would be a year or two and a lot of fraudsters at his level don't even get any bird in UK.

So, to recap, and to give you a chance to understand what is being explained to you here, the UK system, rotten and immoral though it is, is sufficiently rich to support any amount of frauding and the taxpayers have so far not rebelled against being milked by the thieves. So that's a great system and everyone's a winner. The fraudsters aren't punished and can have as much free money as they want, the taxpayers', although a bit annoyed from time to time when it comes to their attention how badly they're being mugged, nevertheless carry on living in UK and paying taxes. Well, not all of them, actually quite a few people leave UK in disgust every year, but there hasn't ever been a major flight so the remaining people have chosen to stay.

So there we are, a great system in UK and everyone's a winner. No, I wouldn't want to live in France or Dubai, you can get locked up for the slightest misdemeanor, for stuff that in UK is just normal everyday behaviour. Yes, UK is a great country. Rule Britannia, Britannia rules the waves!

I hope you've managed to follow this explanation I've made especially for you. However, judging by the level of intellect, or rather lack of it, that you've demonstrated in your post I suppose that's unlikely. Perhaps you should do some more reading and research and thinking before you come on here, some of us know what we're talking about so you don't really want to make a fool of yourself trying to talk to people when you're out of your depth and struggling to make sense at the edge of and beyond your understanding.

tartanterra

lionelator wrote: »

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/jul/23/dubai-safi-qurashi

Then theres this poor Brit, jailed for 7 bleeding years for bouncing a cheque given as security and that was never meant to be cashed as a deal was completed, the cheque was purely security. Thats what happens when theres no real law and order. Jailed, with the local justice system not giving him a chance to explain. 7 years, seeing his wife and kids once a week.

And youre here telling us about how the system works so much better elsewhere. Just a little research avoids much egg on your face.

Hmmm.......

Let's get this straight....A real estate agent - in a country suffering a spectacular housing crash - writes cheques for millions of pounds, then the money to cover them isn't in his account, despite the fact that this particular country has extremely punitive penalties for cheque fraud.

His defence is that he didn't actually owe the money, despite the fact that he wrote the cheques.

Have I got that right? I just wondered, because I've never actually written cheques for money I didn't owe.

I agree with you that someones got egg on their face, but I don't think it's mostlycheerful, who appears to have written a decent article on people commiting fraudulant transactions such as bouncing rubber cheques.:)

lionelator

mostlycheerful wrote: »

You misread my comment. As you can see if you read it clearly at the end of paragraph 2 I say "an amazing system, actually", both amazing that such a thing should be possible, ie that you can just rip off banks and get away with it, and amazing as in amazingly good. What you need to try to understand is that the point is that in UK you can borrow as much as you want and not even pay it back and the taxpayers keep paying to support that system. So it's rough on the taxpayers having to support the thieves but it's great for all the thieves.

Yes, I read all the recent Dubai stuff and what you failed to read or mention is the website set up by the bloke's 11 year old daughter, or so it says except that it's clearly written and laid out by adults, begging for her dad to be released. What you also fail to understand is that when you bounce cheques in Dubai it's a crime and just saying you thought someone else had paid some money into your account but in fact they didn't doesn't cut any ice and is no excuse and you get banged up if you try that kind of sketch. In UK the worst you'd get for the rip off this character did would be a year or two and a lot of fraudsters at his level don't even get any bird in UK.

So, to recap, and to give you a chance to understand what is being explained to you here, the UK system, rotten and immoral though it is, is sufficiently rich to support any amount of frauding and the taxpayers have so far not rebelled against being milked by the thieves. So that's a great system and everyone's a winner. The fraudsters aren't punished and can have as much free money as they want, the taxpayers', although a bit annoyed from time to time when it comes to their attention how badly they're being mugged, nevertheless carry on living in UK and paying taxes. Well, not all of them, actually quite a few people leave UK in disgust every year, but there hasn't ever been a major flight so the remaining people have chosen to stay.

So there we are, a great system in UK and everyone's a winner. No, I wouldn't want to live in France or Dubai, you can get locked up for the slightest misdemeanor, for stuff that in UK is just normal everyday behaviour. Yes, UK is a great country. Rule Britannia, Britannia rules the waves!

I hope you've managed to follow this explanation I've made especially for you. However, judging by the level of intellect, or rather lack of it, that you've demonstrated in your post I suppose that's unlikely. Perhaps you should do some more reading and research and thinking before you come on here, some of us know what we're talking about so you don't really want to make a fool of yourself trying to talk to people when you're out of your depth and struggling to make sense at the edge of and beyond your understanding.

The point I was trying to put across is that people run up debts, then run from them, and get away with it all over the world, not just in the UK. Clearly thats been lost on you.
Theres plenty of people struggling to pay back the loans they have taken out in the UK, theres a huge section on this website itself which others have noted is getting bigger and bigger. Not everyone who takes out a loan is a thief and gets away with highway robbery.
In terms of describing the UK system as rotten and immoral, I still think youre talking out of your rear end, systems all over the world have problems, theres no perfect system or everyone would be copying it. Again, debts and thieves exist across cultures and across countries.
The difference is theres proper laws in some countries, lax as you may find them, and then theres lawlessness in other countries, where in many cases a court case is more token than anything else.
Bouncing cheques, drink driving, virtually any crime in some places, Dubai included, carry very vastly differing penalties depending on who is committing the crimes. If you think all bounced cheques end with people thrown in jail over there youre incorrect.

In fact, if I'm not mistaken, a lot of RBS's problems, if I remember, stem from lending in Dubai, to big companies that were supposedly backed by the government, and whose massive debts are now being renegotiated as they are struggling to pay back the debts.
The circumstances surrounding the renegotiation of debts were quite amusing, the companies involved stated they couldnt pay back debts as scheduled, would look into it, the sums involved were billions, all the lenders panicked, and all the responsible parties for the major companies promptly went on holiday for about a week or two leaving everyone hanging.
So holding them up as a shining example of financial management or transparent, clear and straightforward systems, seems odd to me.

In terms of the cheque bouncing bit, perhaps I read and understood it a little differently from you and the next post down. I took the text to mean that the gent wrote a cheque out, as a guarantee, up until a business deal was sealed. At the conclusion of the deal, the money was paid through other means so the guarantee was no longer necessary. The cheque then, would have been listed as a guarantee in whatever contracts accompanied the deal, with the understanding that if the deal was concluded and moneys paid otherwise, the guarantee would obviously not need to be cashed. Instead the Russian businessman attempted to cash the cheque as well, and, perhaps as he was better connected, the world falls down for the Brit. This does happen fairly often in that part of the world, is very much tied in to who knows who, and I think I was actually living in the country when it happened and the general opinion was the guy had not done much wrong but locals were keen to make examples of some people when the property market went up the creek.

That would explain why he is trying to explain that the courts ought to listen to his reasoning and examine the contracts and details of what happened, and why he is claiming an injustice, instead of just pleading for clemency as is the case when people are caught red handed.
As a simpler example, if I wrote a post dated cheque for the 24th, after payday, and someone attempted to cash it on the 22nd, it may bounce, but Id feel quite entitled to say theres no way it should have been pushed through on the 22nd as that wasnt the terms of the arrangement.
I could be wrong but thats how I see it.
If it makes you feel a bigger person by insulting me you can give it a go. I thought, and still think your original post was a bit silly and over dramatic, and your follow up seems to continue in that vein.
I dont think Ive made a fool of myself at all, so I'll continue posting thanks

P.S. Ive only spoken of Dubai and not France as Ive never lived in France so cant comment as I dont know much about the local rules and regs.

Generali

lionelator wrote: »

P.S. Ive only spoken of Dubai and not France as Ive never lived in France so cant comment as I dont know much about the local rules and regs.

I've lived in France. If you write a cheque and there aren't funds available you'll get a stroppy letter from the bank reminding you that it's against the law to do so etc. If you do it a few times then the bank will close your account on you and you may have difficulty opening a new one.

You're only likely to get into real trouble if you write a cheque that bounces and then refuse to pay. A good way to get into trouble would be with the following sort of scenario.

You write a cheque to buy something from a shop. The cheque bounces but the product isn't what you want so you decide to return the product. The shop doesn't want the product back, they want your cash. You say "Non!", they call les vieux Guillame and the police tell you to pay the shop. You decide to push it and in the end you get arrested. At that point it will be made very clear to you that either you pay and sort out your consumer law issue separately or you will be facing the local magistrate and he'll sort it out. If you still refuse to pay then the magistrate will put you through the courts.

I've never heard of that happening but I would imagine you'd end up with a chunky fine (few hundred Euro perhaps) and be ordered to pay the shop. If you could persuade the magistrate that the product was faulty, he may make the shop take the product back but you'd probably still get fined.