Should local councils be doing more to stop payday lending in their area?

Monkeyballs

27col wrote: »

Wash your mouth out!. The very idea that people should take responsibility for their own actions is outrageous, What would all the state nannies and do-gooders do if you left them nothing to interfere with.

It must be difficult though, I'm generalising but...

On one hand you have those people who either know better or have learned the hard way (and I include myself in the latter) and on the other hand you have guilable, naive or "troubled" (of which I would have previously included myself) people.

So is it a bad thing that the councils/government should be looking at ways to safe guard the latter section of people despite the former feeling it is their own look out if they get into financial hardship and suffer the stresses that come with it?

I am recovering from a gambling problem which (in part but not wholly) led me to build up a debt of close to £20k.

I had to be the one to realise that I had a problem and take the necessary steps to help myself but this was not until after I had entered into a circle of Payday lenders who honestly never questioned or offered any alternative to me either rolling over or renewing my outstanding loan even when I had to provide bank statements which were then sent to their head office for approval (and they always were) despite showing large sums coming out on my pay day followed immediately by deposits fr slightly smaller amounts paid in cash in branch...

It's one thing for someone to take responsibility for their own actions and a whole other for companies to willingly keep them in a circle of lending purely because it was profitable to them!

Hence the need for changes in legislation, not making an outright ban.

MB

Former_MSE_Wendy

Hi all

I've added a new Citizens Advice blog to the top post from Leeds council. Here's a link for ease http://blogs.citizensadvice.org.uk/blog/leeds-city-council-take-a-stand-against-high-cost-lending/

Take a read and let us know if your council is taking similar actions.

MSE Wendy

ihateyes

Councils are no better than Payday Sharks....

example someone in financial difficulties.... struggling to pay their bills... inc c tax. and fall in arrears.

very quickly council gets an attachment of earnings taking hundreds of £'s a month from wages, without you being able to put your case to a judge,,,,,#


now a credit card/loan company cant go to court and get this attachment like the council without the defendant getting their say and getting a fairer judgement from the judge

Former_MSE_Wendy

Afternoon everyone

There are a couple of new CAB payday loan blogs for you to feast your eyes on...

Northamptonshire: 'It's not just about books': the Northamptonshire library service and payday lending

And

Plymouth: It's Mayday for payday lenders in Plymouth

Let us know below what you think and if you'd like the same to happen near you.

Blackbeard_of_Perranporth

One ahas to ask why the councils and social services do not, can not offer the services these companies offer.

they are more at the forefront of alleviating poverty in our country, by allowing someone to pay, say their over priced council tax bill for pennies, as against an attachment of earnings order given out as sweet wrappings by the magistrates and their council cohorts.

fact, attachment of earnings order for Council tax is automatic in most cases. A CCJ for a payday loan requires a lot more effort

Get off this horse and sort welfare out.

michelleturner_2

Councils need to be going after the pay day loan companies, they are robbing people day light

Apples2

michelleturner wrote: »

Councils need to be going after the pay day loan companies, they are robbing people day light

They only rob the people who try to rob them by refusing to repay their loans.

Borrowing £100 for a fortnight will cost about £20.
I wouldn't do it but £20 to get you out of a hole isn't too bad is it?

BRITGUY

Well said Monkeyballs, people all make mistakes, panic when they make that mistake, and there is something about having payday lenders readily available in the high street that gives them an aura of respectability that makes it seem like a good idea when it isn't. That is why they don't need to be sitting in the high street, with big yellow balloons & photos of smiling people with wads of cash spread out like a pack of cards. The high street banks are certainly not helping things, I'm not in anyway defending them -and yes the idea of paying £20 to borrowing £100 for a few days is handy - but in practice that rarely happens? How many payday lenders do offer the facility to pay solely for the days you use them? Looking at the payday lenders I used over the years, 10% at most - and the benefit of this is masked in most that do, eg Minicredit, by the £19.50 fixed transfer fee when you take the loan out.

pvt

BRITGUY wrote: »

-and yes the idea of paying £20 to borrowing £100 for a few days is handy - but in practice that rarely happens?

Well I think you're completely wrong. I think that is in fact what happens most of the time - and the people who use them in that way, and pay back the money, are quite happy with the service they're paying for.

The problem is the minority of people who borrow with no real intention of trying to pay it back, and who's circumstances mysteriously change so they don't have the money to pay it back when they agreed to pay it back. And it is those who then think the PDL companies are big bad wolves for ever wanting their money back, and who were praying on them by lending it to them in the first place, and, anyway, they should have done more careful checks and would have seen the borrower was lying about having a job in the first place, and already owed other PDLs fistfulls of money they've already defaulted on etc. etc.

And so it is that the Councils start censoring what everyone can see on the Internet in public libraries imagining they can "protect" that delinquent minority and deny the sensible majority access to a service they want and would use sensibly.

BRITGUY

We'll agree to disagree, pvt, because I doubt that is the majority view. I've had a number of payday loans in the past, have never missed payment on any of them, and thankfully I have none now, but was I happy with them? No, I've had transmission fees of £19.50 charged for what must be a 20 second job on internet banking, late fees where I was charged £60 for a supposed failed payment at 0.01AM (the Ombudsman found in my favour and I got my money back... 6 months later), got into permanent loops on the phone trying to find someone to speak to and ending up back at the starting menu, had money taken from my account before the contractual repayment date, and been generally treated like dirt by them.... until I repaid them & then I get inundated by calls, because I'm a good borrower and the cash registers light up in their eyes. But that doesn't discuss the fact that I believe the majority of people who use payday lenders are not happy with them, and that the majority of payday lenders have no interest in the welfare of their customers and would happily take away all a customer's money if they had the chance, however unjustified their rates are - and companies like that have no place in the high street