Avoid Loan Sharks This Christmas
As we enter the final week leading up to Christmas, many people in the UK will be spending a small fortune on their last minute shopping and preparations for Christmas. In a large number of cases, individuals will need financial help to cover the cost, usually through a personal loan of some kind.
But with traditional personal loans through banks and building societies becoming harder to obtain since the credit crunch, many individuals are starting to turn to more expensive alternatives such as door step lenders and pay day loans.
In some cases, people who are desperate to obtain a loan to cover the cost of Christmas, are turning to illegal and unlicensed loan sharks in order to get the cash they need and although the loan may only be for a few hundred pounds, the eventual cost of the loan could be extreme.
The Office of fair Trading (OFT) has warned consumers against the dangers of using the services of an illegal loan shark, saying that borrowers could not only end up paying a huge amount of interest on the loan, but could also face intimidation, threats and even physical violence if the loan repayments are not made in full and on time.
The OFT believe that there are somewhere in the region of 250,000 individuals who could be tempted to take a loan out with a loan shark and are vulnerable to this kind of illegal and unlicensed lending.
One woman who was a victim of a loan shark told of her experience, she said “They’ve got their people that can come and kidnap you, shoot you, do whatever they want to you. If you’re not paying and you’re not co-operating then they’ll get someone to come and sort that out.”
“They would say we didn’t pay them when we did pay them. They could see I feared them, so they took advantage of that, took advantage of the kids crying.”
