The NEW Provident Visa Card

sydtoon

Spam arrived this morning

The NEW Provident RIP OFF Visa Card ONE HUNDERD AND EIGHTY THREE POINT TWO PERCENT :eek:

Link http://www.providentpersonalcredit.com/

Zebedee69

Sounds like a bargain lmao! Is it a card or a loan? It sounds like a loan but its a picture of a card?????

Imagine using it in Tesco......... red faces all around!

redsquarelady

the first page is a loan but you can click on the card. Then it says its a debit card that your friendly representative will collect weekly payments from you.:rotfl:
So its a bit like a credit card really i think

UK007BullDog

Oh my God, does the FSA know about this one? Its disgusting!

weegie.geek

wrote:

It's safe, secure and it's not a credit card

By the looks of it you're getting a loan from them to buy their prepaid visa card.

183.2% is terrifying, but if you go into their loan calculator you'll see that if you want to pay it back quicker, you'll be paying 365.1% apr. :eek:

inmypocketnottheirs

OMG. Shocking. Terrible. How dare they?

Can they get away with this?

chuckley

LMAO!!!!!!!!!!!!!

gotta be a typo....

thats mad crazy!

Martinslovechild

Unfortunately, the people that this card is aimed at are likely to also be the very same people that don't ask questions such as 'what's the APR?'. In fact, they're more likely to ask 'How much will it cost me each week?'.

It's a sad fact that companies such as Provident will always prey on those people; I recently read that they've even seen an increase in business over the past 6 months due, they believe, to the credit crunch.

I suppose that the people at the bottom of the credit chain will not have much choice other than to use these rats. It's a sad reflection of our society.

Tirian

You guys make me laugh sometimes. Just because this card isn't useful to you doesn't mean that it isn't useful to anyone. And of course the FSA bloody know about it, Provident are one of the biggest lenders in the country!!

Provident's APRs are high for several reasons - one, because they lend at high risk. The people who borrow from them probably wouldn't be able to find anyone else to lend to them, because their income is low or they have a poor credit rating. Two, because their business model involves significantly higher costs than standard loans/credit cards. It includes a personal representative visiting each lender to collect payments in person - that costs more than just sending a letter and trusting the borrower to send back their payment. Finally, the APR is not necessarily the best way to measure the cost of borrowing, it is just one of many ways.

For example, if I borrow twenty quid from a mate, and then buy him a £2 beer as thanks when I pay him back the next day, that's equivalent to APR of a few million percent! Does that mean that I've been fleeced, 'preyed upon' or any of these other lovely terms you bandy around? No - it just means that APR is a crap way to measure the cost of this particular loan.

The BENEFIT of borrowing from the Provi is that they make repayment personal and easy, and it's extremely easy to work out how much you have to pay them - because it's a fixed amount, and isn't worked out on the basis of percentages e.g. If you borrow £100, then you pay back £150. If you pay it back early, then you still pay back £150 - which makes it massively higher APR. On the other hand, if you miss a payment or two, you will still pay back £150, it will just take you a few weeks longer (this would make the APR lower) - and there's no penalty fees. While you might scoff, many people actually find it easier to deal with money this way.

And before you get too smug, just take a moment to think about what the 'APR' on your credit card would really be if you missed a couple of payments, and racked up a few penalty fees. If you factored those in you'd pretty soon find your APR wouldn't look too different to the Provi's. Of course, you lot probably don't ever need to worry about what happens if you can't afford to make a payment, because you're comfortably well off and if things are tight, that probably means going without that second mocha-chocacino at Starbucks or maybe renting a DVD rather than taking a family trip to the cinema. For people who are on the breadline though, it's very possible that they might not have even £5 spare at the end of a week, even if they've economised to the max. In that situation, it's pretty important to know that you're not going to get whacked with a penalty fee - and that's why they like the Provi.

Grade_A_Reject

weegie.geek wrote: »

By the looks of it you're getting a loan from them to buy their prepaid visa card.

183.2% is terrifying, but if you go into their loan calculator you'll see that if you want to pay it back quicker, you'll be paying 365.1% apr. :eek:

Yes, but look at the smiley happy faces on the cartoon people on that page. Makes me want to get one. :rotfl:

spinningsheep

I have a provi loan and I love it!! My agent is fantastic, if I need an extra few quid I simply add it onto my exsisting loan, I always know where I am, I deal in cash and I can see at a glance in my book how much I owe, and can see the balance going down.