'Self-Excluding' oneself from Payday Loan accounts

LondonMiss30

Hi All,

First post so please be nice!

For the last few years, I have been suffering from a gambling addiction which has been destroying my life.

I've not gambled for nearly eight months and things are looking good.

I did however, get myself into a terrible mess with Payday loans. I used to think 'its OK, I'll win the money back to pay them off'.

To help, I was trying to find a way to close an account and stop me from using it ever again. With gambling websites, you have a 'self-exclusion' option which is very useful and to stop any temptation, I'd love to 'self-exclude' myself from Payday Loan sites.

Does anyone know if its possible?

JuicyJesus

You can go for CIFAS protective registration, which places a marker on your credit file saying that you want extra scrutiny over all applications, but that's a crapshoot (it might just delay applications, or do nothing at all) and would affect applications for everything, not just payday loans. It also costs money. There is also no guarantee that some payday loan companies do credit searches at all.

Other than that there is no "opt out" as such other than willpower.

LondonMiss30

Thanks for the quick reply.

That's a shame, I go to GA meetings and almost all of the people in the group used Payday Loans to fund the habit.

I'm sure it would have helped them a lot if payday loan companies had a self-exclude option without it affecting you're credit rating.

dealer_wins

I would suggest asking your bank for a cashcard, and cut up and cancel your debit card and cheque book.

Most payday loan companies insist on borrowers having a debit card.

It means using cash for everything though.

JuicyJesus

LondonMiss30 wrote: »

I'm sure it would have helped them a lot if payday loan companies had a self-exclude option without it affecting you're credit rating.

There's no real way for them to do that, given the size of the payday sector.

If willpower isn't an option, dealer wins' suggestion makes more sense. It also makes gambling less easy too.