Irresponsiable Lending v BR charges

sort_me_own_yard_out

I braved everything last night and went onto Noodle to have a look and reality the sheer amount of debt is frightening.

When I started getting into debt I earnt £6.5k a year as a part time cleaner. My household income was topped up with working tax, child tax credit, child benefit and maintainace from ex husband.

I am still staggered that even though Lloyds knew how much income I had each month that I ended up with £16.5k limit on my credit card, £2.5k overdraft and £10k loan. Barclaycard also gave me a £8k limit on a credit card too.

I know I signed on the dotted line, I know I put the card into the machine and drew the money out of the hole in the wall, I know I am to blame for this mess. BUT my spending/ borrowing cycle begain, I couldnt afford repayments so i bought basics on my card, I never missed a payment till one day I didnt have enough money on my credit card to put food on the table.

In the light of peole taking the banks to court for fees and PPI claims I just wondered if anyone has managed to take a creditor to court for the cost of the BR fees (and while we are at it pain, suffering and the cost to my emotional heath!!) if they hadnt of kept raising my card limit then I doubt I would be here.

PippaGirl_2

I don't think laying blame at someone else's door is helpful. Unless we take full responsibility for our own money management then we won't learn. I don't blame the banks or cc companies, I blame myself - hands up it was me and I'm not doing this again!

sort_me_own_yard_out

Oh Pippa I take full resposibilty as I said I put the card in the machine. I dont/wont shy away from that.

I was sort of thinking out loud playing devils advocate in a way wondering how Lloyds realistically thought how i would be able to re-pay the amount of money they had lent and wondered if the people who have gone over overdraft limits and had their charges refunded if anyone had tested BR fees.

I have not posted to offend anyone and hope I havent.

PippaGirl_2

Yes I'm sure the availability of credit doesn't help people's inability to manage money that's for sure. Life though means alcoholics have to walk down the alcohol aisle on the way to the freezer section .. at the end of the day we are responsible for ourselves.

sort_me_own_yard_out

As a tee total I never go down the alcohol ailse!! I have never had any bank charges either!!

alastairq

at the end of the day we are responsible for ourselves.

whilst that may be true in a black-and-white world, unfortunately we live in a society based upon credit, and ease of access to it.

I sympathise with the OP's sentiments concerning the responsibility of the finance industry with regards to debt.

Every aspect of our working and living day has been filled with pressure from advertising, customer relations, etc by the finance industry to actually push credit upon us.

The industry, and the retail industry as well, has spent, and spends, million and millions of poundy thingies on creating such pressures, to sell their products.

They did so, and do so, in the belief the pressure works.

Is it really any small surprise that people succumb? If we did not, then all that money would have been wasted.

Back in the 1970's, I had to literally go on bended knee to the bank [TSB, as it happened]..for a mortgage of a mere 6K....and struggled to persuade the bank that a 10% deposit would be acceptable. Everything was calculated on my ability to pay.

Yet, a mere 10 or so years ago, when I applied for a 90K mortgage, I was asked if that was enough, and wouldn't I like more? [which would have resulted in a nil deposit and a fitted kitchen to boot!]

I believe much of the change, was down to a change in ethos amongst the personnel selling financial products.

In the 1970's, the bank manager was concerned as to whether I was a 'sound investment' for the bank's money. [which I was]......Just as one has an implied trust in one's Doctor, for example, one also had an implied trust in the opinions of the bank manager, as to whether what one was asking was truly affordable.

Implied trust was the key.

10 years ago, the sales person would only have been concerned with getting that signature, and the resulting bonus.

If it all went Pete Tom a few years down the line, did they care one jot?

Definitely no.....dealing with the financial chaos that their enthusiasm to sell created was someone else's problem...they have departments paid quite well to deal with defaulters, don't they?

It was all based on the principle of greed.

Their greed for more profit, bigger bonuses , and all the materialism that went with it.....and to realise that greed, they had to make all of us be greedy too.....and they paid millions out to make us think greed is ok.

In the 1970's, the byword was 'what if?' [things were to go wrong?]

That was too negative a concept to the finance industry of 10 years ago[and earlier]....so we were pressured into thinking that 'what if' didn't really matter.


Well the finance industry...and just about everybody else, has paid for that greed.

Call it a reality check if you like?


Now, the real problem with BR individuals is that, BR inevitably brings a heightened degree of cynicism towards things financial.

Something the Finance industry would really have hated at one point.


The important thing I want to get across regarding BR is that, it isn't a failure.

No BR person should feel guilt, or remorse at the process.


In a way it's a pity there isn't more of it?

The little man, hitting back?

sort_me_own_yard_out

I was thinking about mortgages last night as I was only allowed to borrow 3 times my £7k basic salary in 1994. 12 years later I had almost 3 times on a credit card alone.

AdvicePlease

I agree with what you are saying - although I am perfectly aware that my situation is 100% my fault, I still find it incredible that Nationwide were prepared to lend me £30,000 in unsecured debts when they knew (a) I had had an IVA which was only completed in 2006 and (b) I had absolutely no assets so they had no chance of getting their money back if I defaulted.

ETA - this is why I am NEVER going to try and clean up my credit files when the time comes - it is pretty damn obvious to me that I cannot be responsible with money so I do not want to be in a position where I can ever get credit again

alastairq

it is pretty damn obvious to me that I cannot be responsible with money so I do not want to be in a position where I can ever get credit again

Whist I agree that acquiring further credit [in the form of 'loans'] is not advisable, I feel you are being far too harsh on yourself.

You have behaved no more irresponsibly than hundreds of millions of others, from the biggest banks down to the smallest child.

You have only gone to prove that the multi-million pound advertising industry is actually worth the million it earns..it is effective.


Credit has been insinuated so deeply into our very social fabric that to actually reject all that it represents, also means rejecting most of what our society stands for today.

Something most of us are loathe to do?

Ask yourself why 'pay-day' loan companies advertise so prominently on telly?

Advertising that must cost a small fortune?

If they thought it wouldn't increase uptake of pay-day loans?

The financial tightrope they hope you fall off is indeed very narrow if payday loans are the only way forwards?

Nobody can foresee the future clearly.....pretty much all f us have debts of one form or another....maybe the Govt. should legislate to make it mandatory that all future credit applications should firstly be pointed towards this board?