Loan nightmares

macman

Why don't you contact his so-called friends who are taking advantage of him by persuading him to lend them money and then not repaying it? Tell them that your son will be taking them to court for non-payment of their debts to him (not likely to succeed in practice, but if they are as gullible as him, they won't know that).
Just letting him default is a bad option. It'll stop him taking more loans, yes, but it will also trash his credit record for the next 6 years: which means any other credit will be expensive or impossible. No contract phone, no credit card, bank loan, car finance, mortgage, or credit reference if he wants to rent a home...
He may not need or even be considering any of this stuff now, but 6 years down the line his life could be very different.
If you bail him out yet again, make it clear that he has to repay you, and set up a formal mechanism for him to do so (month SO or whatever). Not just 'when he is able'.

macman

PS: if this money is not even needed for his own use, then I'm not clear why he feels under pressure to take further loans just because he gets a text message? Are his 'friends' actively hassling him to borrow for them? Block the numbers!

MinuteNoodles

Scoobydooz said:

thanks to everyone, I understand he is an adult, yes i have wrapped him in cotton wool and I totally agree that he has a lesson to learn. I cant understand how these companies have continued to loan him money, if they checked they would see that he has had 3 loans running over a short space of time clearly making it un affordable

Just because you have multiple loans doesn't automatically make it unaffordable. No doubt at some point in your life you've had a bank loan, maybe a car on finance, a credit card balance and a mortgage on the go all at the same time. Those are all multiple loans running simultaneously.

As long as the income he told them he was earning was sufficient to support the loans and they were being repaid then they have no reason to suspect anything amiss.

Stop looking for other people to blame so you can maintain your view of your son being someone who can do no wrong and who is a wholly innocent party in this because he isn't. The only one to blame for your son being in the mess he is in is himself.

He needs to learn there's real world ramifications for his decisions. He's not going to learn those whilst you're there telling him it's everyone else's fault for the mess he's in because they lent him money he asked for and bailing him out and paying them for him. Quite clearly he's not learning anything given he's applied for yet another loand and he needs to get some nasty letters landing on his doorstep, find himself without money to go out with his friends (which means you need to refuse any requests to lend money) and maybe finding things like not being able to get a new mobile phone contract to get the latest shiney new phone.

Scoobydooz

macman said:

Why don't you contact his so-called friends who are taking advantage of him by persuading him to lend them money and then not repaying it? Tell them that your son will be taking them to court for non-payment of their debts to him (not likely to succeed in practice, but if they are as gullible as him, they won't know that).
Just letting him default is a bad option. It'll stop him taking more loans, yes, but it will also trash his credit record for the next 6 years: which means any other credit will be expensive or impossible. No contract phone, no credit card, bank loan, car finance, mortgage, or credit reference if he wants to rent a home...
He may not need or even be considering any of this stuff now, but 6 years down the line his life could be very different.
If you bail him out yet again, make it clear that he has to repay you, and set up a formal mechanism for him to do so (month SO or whatever). Not just 'when he is able'.

He is repaying the money back to me every month, out of his pay. He is up over his head with the debt, he has lost his home so is now homeless (staying in emergency accommodation)

TripleH

Am I being naive, but could your son 'himself' ask these loan companies to stop contacting him (where he no longer owes anything) and be removed from their customer database? 
Your son would need to do it as he is an adult and they will ignore you. It should be helpful to him to start to take control of his life and help him mature.
To take a positive, your son may have learnt several important life lessons here and gotten off quite painlessly, he may need to look to 'spring clean' his friendship group a bit as actually it sounds that some of them are immature (and notblearnt their lessons) or are holding your son back.

fatbelly

He could volunteer to add information about any mental health problems to his credit files in what is called a notice of correction. This can be added or removed whenever he wants want, and will leave no footprint of any kind.