Debt

[Mori]

http://www.theherald.co.uk/news/73672.html

The other week i was relieved to pay off my credit card and say to myself that i was on my feet again.

To my surprise i got call from the same company offering me 4x the amount that i had just paid off...i sort of went balistic with the sales person on the phone asking her how could they justify lending that much out without a proper assesment of my income... her answer was that she was only doing her job and the computer does the calcultions and calls up automaticly to previous clients who have paid off their accounts.

No wonder their is so much debt around people being offerd loans left right and centre when the cant pay it off.

Credit card and council tax debt force thousands into bankruptcy

A record number of Scots are failing to keep on top of their debt repayments and are falling into bankruptcy, according to the latest figures.
The number of Scots being sequestrated, the Scottish term for bankruptcy, in the third quarter of 2006 is the highest quarterly figure
since records were released in 1998.

[glasgowken]

I could do with a credit card

[My Kitten]

The other week i was relieved to pay off my credit card and say to myself that i was on my feet again.

wanna pay off mine?

[Mori]

The other week i was relieved to pay off my credit card and say to myself that i was on my feet again.

wanna pay off mine?

How much is it ?

[My Kitten]

The other week i was relieved to pay off my credit card and say to myself that i was on my feet again.

wanna pay off mine?

How much is it ?

About 5,000 pairs of shoes worth

[Mori]

About 5,000 pairs of shoes worth

Sell them on Ebay and pay the debt aff....

Carrie has the same problem

The only item that she registers for is a single pair of the missing $485 shoes, and Kyra finally comes around and replaces the missing Manolos.

http://www.hbo.com/city/episode/season6/episode83.shtml

[McShad]

I had a similar rant in a bank.... their computers are purely designed to make THEM money by any means possible.

[mairead]

I think debt is not a modern phenomenon, it's been around for years, only, when I was young it was not credit card but hire purchase which was the norm, and many people used HP to furninsh their homes, (Me included) The relief when the debt was paid off was just great, but the hardship and worry of paying it taught me a good lesson.
Lots of those who criticise the young for rashness with credit cards should remember the days of HP, slot televisions etc. not to mention the 'Tallyman'

[Josef]

I think debt is not a modern phenomenon, it's been around for years, only, when I was young it was not credit card but hire purchase which was the norm, and many people used HP to furninsh their homes, (Me included) The relief when the debt was paid off was just great, but the hardship and worry of paying it taught me a good lesson.
Lots of those who criticise the young for rashness with credit cards should remember the days of HP, slot televisions etc. not to mention the 'Tallyman'

There will always be people who make money out of desperation, Mairead. But perhaps the difference now is that it is the banks who are desperate.

No chairman ever made his £5,000,000 bonus out of responsible lending .

[Peekay]

I'm in the process of getting all my charges back off the bank and Visa. Just over a grand they've had off me in the last 18 months. My first letters to them saw me with an offer of £148 from my bank and a big hee-haw from Visa. This just will not do thoughts I! The second round of more threatening letters are going away tomorrow. I get a feeling I'll be dusting off my court appearance jacket soon. Robbing bar-stewards!

PK

[Flyingscot]

Credit Cards are bad as people forget they are spending money- nothing like the site of a purple £20 note leaving your hands to make you think!! However used resposibly they are great when somethign goes wrong- someone goes under etc. However only people get themselves into debt by overspending and its usually people who have good paying jobs too. Is there any wonder debt management companies are able to advetise on TV?

My Dad left the bank nearly 15 years ago- sick of the falling standards and the constant money grabbing. He'd take peoples cards off them because they were over-spending and they wanted rid of them, however 4 weeks later they'd have a wallet full again. And if you have 1 to sell mortgage to get you bonus are you going to turn down the guy who may not pay- course not- which can lead to heart break for him, and an immense amount of work for the bank too. Banks shouldn't work like that, but the commercial world sees it as good. Abbey now offering 5x your salery mortgages is ourragous too- if banks had kept it to 2 times main income earners salary houses would still be affordable, and people wouldn't be mortgaged to the hilt and one payment away from anarcy. But wheres the money in that eh?

I hate the fact I get constant hard sell when I go to banks and Iget phone calls from them saying I have too much money in X account-- mostly cause the interest is killling them!

[Josef]

With the liberalisation of the credit laws in the eighties, banks, effectively, got to 'invent' their own money, within certain limits, which means that they can afford to write off far larger sums than they would have in your dad's day, when money would have been 'real money', so to speak, for which someone would have had to answer.

Mortgage multiples have risen for a number of reasons, some related to the above liberalisation, but also to the fact that there are often two meaningful incomes in a household rather than the traditional one.

At the end of the day, though, the same types of people live in the same types of houses that they always did. Although, don't get me started on buy-to-letters .

[Fat Cat]

Credit cards are the work of the devil. I paid mine off recently and have to say what a relief. The interest alone was crippling.

As my mammy always says, "if you haven't got the money, you can't afford it".

True enough!

[Mori]

Things seem to getting from bad to worse.

http://www.eveningtimes.co.uk/news/display.var.1355797.0.0.php

Levels of Scots debt reach all-time high

THE number of Scots going bust has hit an all-time high, shock new figures reveal today.

Almost 300 people a week are being declared insolvent as banks and loan companies get tough on struggling customers.

The figures show that 3860 Scots hit financial meltdown during the first quarter of 2007 - 59 every working day - after running up massive debts on credit cards and other loans.

The figures have soared by nearly a quarter on the same 13-week period the previous year, and are at their highest level ever for a single quarter in Scotland.

[dave2]

The point has recently been made on the BBC that banks need to make money, and if we continue with the ongoing campaigns to remove ALL bank charges from personal current accounts, then either Savings Interest Rates will drop or they will go back to introducing an annual charge for account Administration, Statements, Cheques etc.

I worked for DSS (not Dept Work & pensions) when we were trying to set up the Post Office Card Account) for Benefit payments (the idea being that benefits would be paid to an Account - Bank/Building Society - rather than over the counter at Post Offices*. No bank was willing to set up a simple account - No overdraft, No credit, No debit card, just a cashline equivalent that could be used with a PIN to get money at a cashpoint. Nationwide had a similar system, but because the other banks would not play ball, there would be insufficient national coverage so the contract had to go to the Post Office who at that time had the largest number of outlets of any company in the UK.

With this basic account, the UK government were going to pay a fee for each transaction on the card, assuming that most people would use it only to get their benefit money and were unlikely to use it as a savings account.

*= The reason that UK government were willing to do this was that at that time 2000/1, the cost per benefit payment at the Post Office was £1.58 per payment, and via Direct Debit, including the transaction fee to the Post Office (see above) was 11p (of which 10p was the transaction fee). These adminsitrative 'savings' were used to fun increases in the total pay-out on benefits in the early 2000's without the need to increase the departmental budget - for once, a government efficiency programme that appeared to deliver.