MSE News: Wonga warned over aggressive debt collection

Former_MSE_Helen

"Payday lender Wonga has been ordered to stop aggressive debt-collection tactics or face a £50,000 fine..."

Read the full story:
Wonga warned over aggressive debt collection

runninglea

I bet the're really worried about a potential fine of 50K

hamsterfan1

perhap the should be charged 4214% on it from levy until it is paid (i notice their site says they don't charge 000's% apr because you can't borrow for a year!!!!)

nottoolate

runninglea wrote: »

I bet the're really worried about a potential fine of 50K

maybe it will get rolled over :cool:

zxspeccy

Maybe if Wonga started acting responsibly then it wouldn't be lending money to debt-ridden customers with no ability to repay the loans in the first place..... just a thought.

callum9999

zxspeccy wrote: »

Maybe if Wonga started acting responsibly then it wouldn't be lending money to debt-ridden customers with no ability to repay the loans in the first place..... just a thought.

Well they clearly don't, otherwise they'd be broke...

I personally wouldn't touch them with a bargepole, but they do provide an essential service for some people.

The_Swerve

wow...a whole 50k

talk about toothless

zxspeccy

I wouldn't touch them with somebody else's bargepole and fortunately I don't need to and hopefully never will.

It is interesting that Wonga accuse their "customers" of commiting fraud, as I am sure in some cases they do. Borrowing money when you know that you will be unable to pay it back is fraud (isn't it?... money by deception?). It is just people don't think when they are deparate, and these type of companies wouldn't exist if there wasn't desparate people out there. I do wonder how anyone could possibly work for a company like this, how could they live with themselves?

The £50K fine only applies if Wonga continue to operate in this manner. All they will do is change their email/letter templates and telephone scripts so that they communicate their message in more general terms, rather that accusing the "customer" directly.

VT82

Funny how on the BBC article reporting this, it dedicated about half the article giving Wonga a right to reply, saying that it only affected a very small amount of customers, these customers were suspected of fraud, it happened over 18 months ago, there are procedures in place to ensure it doesn't happen again, and although some letters were definitely sent, they can't even be sure that the phone call scripts from the time which contained the offending remarks were even used in the first place.

But then I guess MSE doesn't consider that this needed to get in the way of a good news item.

And no, I don't work for Wonga, and have never had any experience with a payday lender.

nottoolate

It also said that the script used on the phone by its in-house debt collecting staff had not been used since January 2010.

that statement by wonga is clearly not true.

15-07-2010

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showpost.php?p=34771585&postcount=1

adamc260

50k is nothing to them... they'll make that back in interest before you can even blink!