Is there a "self exclude" option on payday loans sites?

KingElvis

Late_To_Bed wrote: »

When I first joined MSE, there were lots of people who were sympathetic and eager to help posters.

Very sad it is.

Sorry Yoda...I've always been harsh...but constructive.

Treadmill

Payday loans are often used to gamble, but then so are credit cards and money from pawned jewellery. As someone with a gambling problem I have financed gambling in every way possible, including dole money and housing benefit when I was younger. If going hungry and homeless won't stop people gambling self exclusion certainly won't.

fozmcfc

There doesn't need to be a self exclude option, but there does need to be tighter regulation.

My idea is along the line of....

Lump all PDL companies together in a central database.

1/ Anyone taking out a loan should have to wait at least 24 hours for it to be processed, in that time the database is checked and updated.

2/ Once approved loan, it is marked immediately as taken. Until loan is paid off and database notified, no further loan allowed.

3/If loan paid off, then further loan allowed once database updated.

4/ If loan not paid off on time then....

a/ If paid within a 48 hour period of pay date, further loan allowed, but only after at least 1 calendar month has passed.

b/ If not paid within 48 hours, then no futher loan allowed until it is paid and a further 3 more calendar months passed.

Self excluding only helps so much. As an ex heavy gambler, I have closed 50 plus accounts in the past, but there is always a new casino to join.

Payday loan companies are the same, self exclude from one, choose another from the dozens and dozens more.

If a central database is set up, then I guess you could self excluded via that, but somehow, I can't see my idea coming into force.

27col

Whatever happened to the quaint old notion of taking responsibility for your own actions. Oh! and also the notion of willpower.

toddle2u

Whatever happened to the quaint old notion of taking responsibility for your own actions. Oh! and also the notion of willpower.

Being so smug and slf-righteous must be very difficult!

Apples2

I wouldn't say having an ability to resist that giant magnet sucking or fingers toward applying for loans something to be self righteous or smug about.

NOT having that ability is maybe something to be embarrassed about.

27col

toddle2u wrote: »

Being so smug and slf-righteous must be very difficult!

No, actually it is quite easy. Anyway, I'm glad that I managed to ring your bell and to provoke you into your insightful contribution to this thread.

toddle2u

No, actually it is quite easy. Anyway, I'm glad that I managed to ring your bell and to provoke you into your insightful contribution to this thread.

Insightful contributions is something you would know nothing about. These boards are not for judging people but for offering help and advice. Just saying 'oh they should have been mentally stronger and not taken the loan out' is a pathetic and naive point of view. People in desperate situations do desperate things and do not think in a logical manner. This is something I see every day and can assure you I have far more knowledge of than yourself

guruchelles

I don't think a self-exclude button would work.

What I do think, though, is that PDL have become far too mainstream. They have become normalised by the recent swaythe of cutsie advertising (I'm thinking lovely old grannies etc.) People who are new to dealing with their own finances think that PDL are a standard thing that people do and they often don't realise just how damaging they can be.

With recent talk on these boards about the possibility that having a PDL on your credit file will preclude you from securing a mortgage, I think it's high time these institutions were forced to warn of the repercussions of their product.

FireWyrm

guruchelles wrote: »

With recent talk on these boards about the possibility that having a PDL on your credit file will preclude you from securing a mortgage, I think it's high time these institutions were forced to warn of the repercussions of their product.

There's no 'possibility' about it...Lloyds have already said so outright.

What everyone is also forgetting, this is business. Why should a company be forced to hobble its own business because a hand full of people behaving like greedy children in a sweet shop. PDLs publish their own statistics and they are quite clear. Most PDL applications are for 'frivilous' or 'non urgent' requirements such as 'night out', 'holidays', 'new clothes' etc. Almost none what so ever are for food for instance. These statistics clearly show that most people are living way beyond their means simply because they can.

No one is forced to use a PDL, no one will truly starve in the western world, therefore it is choice. Why should we have to pay for yet more legislation to hobble a lending industry that is just following market forces? Let it run, and when those people find out they cant actually borrow for a mortgage, they will be forced into a drastic curtailment of their lifestyles. Perhaps it might actually help to correct this lopsided economy at the same time.