Can These Fockers Trade Here

brian ireland

I was looking at Sky2 and saw an ad for these
They charge a whopping 2689% APR
Please tell me we have some laws to stop this coming over here.
This is just lower than a snakes belly.
Its simple you need to pay a gas bill before you are cut off, for say 200 euro. You borrow from these and you have one month to pay it back plus another 70 euro ish. This is a slippery slope to nowhere.
2689% interest WTF.
Have i got my maths wrong?

ejmaztec

It's more expensive at your local kneecappers.ie franchise.

galwayrush

It's not going to be compulsary to use them.;)

alwaysadub

They are over here already aren't they? Them ads have been out for ages, i'm nearly sure i saw them on Irish tv too.

brian ireland

galwayrush wrote: »

It's not going to be compulsary to use them.;)

Say that to someone who has no job, no heating, no money for clothes for the kids, no money for treats for the kids. No dignity, No hope.
It preying on the vulnerable.

@Chinafoot, @starbelgrade I put that to you too! Not looking for a row, just your point of view.

starbelgrade

galwayrush wrote: »

It's not going to be compulsary to use them.;)

True, but a lot of people get stuck in a cycle of spiralling debts.

Companies like this - essentially loan sharks - prey on people like this. The maximum loan of €400 costs €125 interest over a 30 day period & I can only imagine what the compound interest is on this if you default.

To anyone experiencing debt or money problems, I'd seriously advise them to contact MABS.

minidazzler

brian ireland wrote: »

Say that to someone who has no job, no heating, no money for clothes for the kids, no money for treats for the kids. No dignity, No hope.
It preying on the vulnerable.

@Chinafoot, @starbelgrade I put that to you too! Not looking for a row, just your point of view.

If someone with no money and no money due to come in takes out a loan like that then they are an idiot. Loans don't cure money worries if they have no money in the first place!

Leeg17

My man Deco does a nice cheaper rate of 2,500%.

Ballymun flat B, floor 12, room 21.

Tell him Vinny sent ya

starbelgrade

minidazzler wrote: »

If someone with no money and no money due to come in takes out a loan like that then they are an idiot. Loans don't cure money worries if they have no money in the first place!

You don't necessarily have to be an idiot to do that, just desperate.

Superbus

Don't worry, they're just little fockers. You should meet them, they're alright actually.




Ben Stiller.

ejmaztec

The credit unions were set up to help people avoid getting lured in by loan-sharks, yet the bastards are still out there extorting money from people who, for one reason or other, can't get anything out of their local credit union.

brian ireland

minidazzler wrote: »

If someone with no money and no money due to come in takes out a loan like that then they are an idiot. Loans don't cure money worries if they have no money in the first place!

Obviously you have never been desperate for money!
Unfortunately in the last few years many people lost their jobs and can't afford to pay their mortgage, loans and bills.
People who would have had no problem paying bills suddenly found themeless not being able to cope.
Add a parent who drinks more than the income provides and then add children who want what their mates have into the mix.
Suddenly you feel inadequate and look for a quick fix.
Do you get my point?

keithm1

No job plus dept from good times plus kids plus Xmas plus playstation 3 from Santa = borrowing from these vultures

keithm1

It's a simple enough equation

galwayrush

brian ireland wrote: »

Say that to someone who has no job, no heating, no money for clothes for the kids, no money for treats for the kids. No dignity, No hope.
It preying on the vulnerable.

@Chinafoot, @starbelgrade I put that to you too! Not looking for a row, just your point of view.

Been close to that position a few times, but would never resort to using scum like them for money.
Yeah, i know what you mean though, some people see it as a quick solution to an immediate problem and not the reality that it is as in digging a deeper hole for themselves.

brian ireland

galwayrush wrote: »

Been close to that position a few times, but would never resort to using scum like them for money.
Yeah, i know what you mean though, some people see it as a quick solution to an immediate problem and not the reality that it is as in digging a deeper hole for themselves.

I just think that because they can advertise on Tv it looks kinda official.

People will just go for the money and not understand or care about the small print.
I suppose if you don't pay them back they can't send around the boys to break your legs.

Dionysus

Have a read of this article: Moneylenders owed €113m by borrowers at rates of up to 188% (20 Dec. 2010)

Provident Personal Credit is the largest and most infamous legal moneylender in Ireland. It currently has some 88,000 customers and charges an interest rate of up to 187.22% per annum.

The thinking which justifies keeping these moneylenders legal is that it's better to have poor people going to regulated firms like these than going to unregulated firms which would cause even more pain, financial and physical, to the same families. Does anybody have a realistic alternative?

thetonynator

Theres a limit on 188%APR in this country afaik.

galwayrush

brian ireland wrote: »

I just think that because they can advertise on Tv it looks kinda official.

People will just go for the money and not understand or care about the small print.
I suppose if you don't pay them back they can't send around the boys to break your legs.

True, it does paint quite an upbeat solution . Legalised scumbags.

Flimbos

Preying on the poor, vulnerable and people with little or no ability to look after themselves financially. They're no better than your friendly neighbourhood loanshark. I see their website has a snow/ winter theme - obviously aimed at the post-Christmas money troubles market.

As Starbelgrade said, people in this situation should contact MABS for advice on money management and St Vincent de Paul if they're really stuck.

Liam Byrne

I commented on the first ads for these vultures last year and didn't believe the interest rate they were quoting.

I guess we should just be glad the country had the option of the IMF, because I wouldn't have put it past Cowen & Co to set up a company offering this and then get "advised" to borrow from it to run the country.

Dionysus

There's a very interesting promotional/propaganda video over on the website of Provident's parent company in Britain entitled 'Meet an Agent':

http://www.providentfinancial.com/index.asp?pageid=2

They describe themselves as the "leading non-standard lender" and claim they call to 1 in every 20 houses in the UK each week. Scary (but worth watching).

PCPhoto

minidazzler wrote: »

If someone with no money and no money due to come in takes out a loan like that then they are an idiot. Loans don't cure money worries if they have no money in the first place!

ha !!! IMF bailout anyone !!!

WallyGUFC

keithm1 wrote: »

No job plus dept from good times plus kids plus Xmas plus playstation 3 from Santa = borrowing from these vultures

Not everyone needs a bloody PS3 for Christmas :rolleyes:

Blisterman

In the magazine my university give out in freshers week there's an ad in it, and this is no exaggeration:

Big Text: What could you buy with £300?
Surrounding the text are images with captions

300 Cans of Beer?
30 bottles of Vodka?
Xbox 360?
20 CDs?
etc

"Every student is entitled to £300 cash! Just call this number"


Then in the very tiny small text
4200% APR

starbelgrade

WallyGUFC wrote: »

Not everyone needs a bloody PS3 for Christmas :rolleyes:

True. Some people already have one.

Guill

Blisterman wrote: »

In the magazine my university give out in freshers week there's an ad in it, and this is no exaggeration:

Big Text: What could you buy with £300?
Surrounding the text are images with captions

300 Cans of Beer?
30 bottles of Vodka?
Xbox 360?
20 CDs?
etc

"Every student is entitled to £300 cash! Just call this number"


Then in the very tiny small text
4200% APR

30 bottles of Vodka!

amacca

Blisterman wrote: »

In the magazine my university give out in freshers week there's an ad in it, and this is no exaggeration:

Big Text: What could you buy with £300?
Surrounding the text are images with captions

300 Cans of Beer?
30 bottles of Vodka?
Xbox 360?
20 CDs?
etc

"Every student is entitled to £300 cash! Just call this number"


Then in the very tiny small text
4200% APR

Part of me thinks any idiot student who would fall for this (at least for vodka related reasons) shouldn't have made the cut to get into college (any college)

Another part of me thinks the weak/vulnerable should be protected from themselves.

Another part of me thinks that protecting all the idiots/weak/vulnerable people is an expensive resource consuming business and nature should take its course. Why interfere with natural selection?

And yet another part of me thinks vulture money lenders should be dealt with severely/run out of the country.

I think I may have multiple personality disorder btw.

Blisterman

The problem is, at 4,200%, you're giving yourself a major problem pretty quickly on one small mistake, as the debt reaches a point where you can't even pay the interest.

Taking out £300, within a year, the debt would build to £12,600. 2 years in, it reaches £529,200!

ascanbe

Blisterman wrote: »

In the magazine my university give out in freshers week there's an ad in it, and this is no exaggeration:

Big Text: What could you buy with £300?
Surrounding the text are images with captions

300 Cans of Beer?
30 bottles of Vodka?
Xbox 360?
20 CDs?
etc

"Every student is entitled to £300 cash! Just call this number"


Then in the very tiny small text
4200% APR

Is your university actually responsible for printing/issuing this magazine? With that ad in it?

amacca

Blisterman wrote: »

The problem is, at 4,200%, you're giving yourself a major problem pretty quickly on one small mistake, as the debt reaches a point where you can't even pay the interest.

Taking out £300, within a year, the debt would build to £12,600. 2 years in, it reaches £529,200!

Wonder what the business plan etc for these businesses is like.

Do they get back a lot more than the principal even if they don't collect the 4200% interest, do they rely on just 20% of people paying back full amount - do they cut you off credit and make you pay back in full over a longer term

when do they give up chasing you, do they seize possessions etc


on the face of it you would think that giving people an insurmountable debt to pay back that quickly would just make them give up paying you anything...... but it must be profitable or else they wouldn't be at it.

makes you wonder what sort of thugs they employ to deal with those that don't pay given that there must be a high proportion of those borrowing unable to pay back?

amacca

ascanbe wrote: »

Is your university actually responsible for printing/issuing this magazine? With that ad in it?

I forgot that...none of my personalities picked up on that one.

Presumably if you pay they will print almost anything, maybe they couldn't refuse it the space as it is a legal business?

steo87

Dionysus wrote: »

There's a very interesting promotional/propaganda video over on the website of Provident's parent company in Britain entitled 'Meet an Agent':

http://www.providentfinancial.com/index.asp?pageid=2

They describe themselves as the "leading non-standard lender" and claim they call to 1 in every 20 houses in the UK each week. Scary (but worth watching).

The Chief Executive of Provident is named Peter Crook ...how fitting :pac:

My name is URL

I can sympathise with people who see no alternative to using these services but at the end of the day they aren't breaking the law.. it may be immoral to prey on those most vulnerable but other than the insanely high interest rates (which they don't try to hide) how is it any different to borrowing from any other bank? If it prevents someones electricity being cut then why wouldn't they use the service when highstreet lenders are turning them away?

keithm1

WallyGUFC wrote: »

Not everyone needs a bloody PS3 for Christmas :rolleyes:

How many kids have you got young buck ,exactly run along now

Liam Byrne

Blisterman wrote: »

In the magazine my university give out in freshers week there's an ad in it, and this is no exaggeration:

Big Text: What could you buy with £300?
Surrounding the text are images with captions

300 Cans of Beer?
30 bottles of Vodka?
Xbox 360?
20 CDs?
etc

"Every student is entitled to £300 cash! Just call this number"


Then in the very tiny small text
4200% APR

Based on the post above re the maximum APR, that advert and the company involved are both illegal.

carwash_2006

keithm1 wrote: »

How many kids have you got young buck ,exactly run along now

What has not having kids got to do with knowing that if someone who can't afford to get one (oops, PS3) without borrowing from these sort of places goes ahead and does that very thing that they are a fool? I desperately wanted a Megadrive when I was a teenager and santa never brought me one and I survived. Very few of my friends when I was a kid got a games console before they could afford one themselves. Funny how they all grew up to be pretty well adjusted adults :rolleyes:

Even if your electricity is going to be cut off, surely the solution to that is to approach your provider and come up with some way of dealing with it, approaching MABS and generally cutting back to the point where you can afford to survive? May not be fun, but if you borrow off these sort of guys if you have no income your problems will grow exponentially!

up for anything

carwash_2006 wrote: »

What has not having kids got to do with knowing that if someone who can't afford to get one (oops, PS3) without borrowing from these sort of places goes ahead and does that very thing that they are a fool? I desperately wanted a Megadrive when I was a teenager and santa never brought me one and I survived. Very few of my friends when I was a kid got a games console before they could afford one themselves. Funny how they all grew up to be pretty well adjusted adults :rolleyes:

The world was a different place when you grew up and more so when I grew up. Very few children had them in your day and nobody had them in mine (principally because they didn't exist). I was doing a bit of moaning with another mother in the months previous to Christmas about the burden of Santa expectations. I barely managed recession Santa while her three boys each got a 30" flat screen tv, 7 xBox games each, a year's subscription to xBox Gold each, a new fancy controller and head set each, plus branded clothes and shoes and that was only the tip of the iceberg. It's very hard to explain to a child why our Santa has a limit and some of their friends' Santas don't.

WallyGUFC

keithm1 wrote: »

How many kids have you got young buck ,exactly run along now

None, but I don't have a PS3 either. But it's not specifically you I'm picking on.

Last day I was in getting the gruaig trimmed and I overheard a fella saying how he had lost his job and twas getting awful hard paying the bills, the electricity, the Sky for the telly!:rolleyes: Attitudes need to change fairly rapid in this country.

amacca

up for anything wrote: »

T I barely managed recession Santa while her three boys each got a 30" flat screen tv, 7 xBox games each, a year's subscription to xBox Gold each, a new fancy controller and head set each, plus branded clothes and shoes and that was only the tip of the iceberg

That mother sounds like either a rich or stupid or both gold plated gob****e!

add that up and be conservative with the amount of branded clothes and shoes, then multiply by three and you've got a small fortune.

It cant be good to just hand over that level of gifts to kids..they will probably turn out to be lazy spoilt brats with ridiculous expectations.

Is there anyway she made them earn that over the course of the year, did they get nothing for their birthdays, did they work...was there any justification for this at all....

up for anything

amacca wrote: »

That mother sounds like either a rich or stupid or both gold plated gob****e!

add that up and be conservative with the amount of branded clothes and shoes, then multiply by three and you've got a small fortune.

It cant be good to just hand over that level of gifts to kids..they will probably turn out to be lazy spoilt brats with ridiculous expectations.

Is there anyway she made them earn that over the course of the year, did they get nothing for their birthdays, did they work...was there any justification for this at all....

To be fair they do their bit about the house. None of them have ever missed a day's school either to illness or (not even when I offered to take one of them with mine on day trip he would have killed for but was refused by the parents because it was a school day) holiday taken in school term. The parents both worked hard up until they lost their jobs in the same place on the same day a couple of weeks after Christmas two years ago. Since then one has retrained and got work and the other is now retraining and working part-time. They aren't by any means rich but they probably manage money well. Something I don't do. Most likely, I am the gob****e.

ibFoxer

up for anything wrote: »

The world was a different place when you grew up and more so when I grew up. Very few children had them in your day and nobody had them in mine (principally because they didn't exist). I was doing a bit of moaning with another mother in the months previous to Christmas about the burden of Santa expectations. I barely managed recession Santa while her three boys each got a 30" flat screen tv, 7 xBox games each, a year's subscription to xBox Gold each, a new fancy controller and head set each, plus branded clothes and shoes and that was only the tip of the iceberg. It's very hard to explain to a child why our Santa has a limit and some of their friends' Santas don't.

Whoa, hold on a sec, what kind of parent gives this kind of "present" to each child. No wonder the country is f***ed with this kind of attitude.

Anyway, back on topic- I can understand why some people might feel that they have nowhere else to turn and end up borrowing from these types of companies. Every day i see how we are back to the situation where, out of foolish pride, people are still putting on their suits and going out in the morning under the pretence of going to work. It's quite understandable how they might feel they have no alternative but to borrow money in such a fashion.

AlmightyCushion

foxerv1 wrote: »

Whoa, hold on a sec, what kind of parent gives this kind of "present" to each child. No wonder the country is f***ed with this kind of attitude.

If they have the money for it then there is no problem in fact it will be the type of thing that will save the country, jobs and provide much needed tax revenue. If, on the other hand, they had to riddle themselves with debt to buy everything then they've fúcked themselves royally for no real reason.

carwash_2006

up for anything wrote: »

The world was a different place when you grew up and more so when I grew up. Very few children had them in your day and nobody had them in mine (principally because they didn't exist). I was doing a bit of moaning with another mother in the months previous to Christmas about the burden of Santa expectations. I barely managed recession Santa while her three boys each got a 30" flat screen tv, 7 xBox games each, a year's subscription to xBox Gold each, a new fancy controller and head set each, plus branded clothes and shoes and that was only the tip of the iceberg. It's very hard to explain to a child why our Santa has a limit and some of their friends' Santas don't.

The only difference about the world now than from when I grew up as far as I can tell is that parents are idiots and seem to think that they need to appease their kids with physical possesions. I'm not going to go into the options for parents to deal with why santa produces better parents for some kids than others, but either a bit of imagination or else a dose of reality are both options. Plenty of kids in my class in school got the things I wanted for christmas but never got, just not my particular group of friends.

Oh and saying they didn't exist is just not true, my parents had a bit more money when we were a little younger and got all of us kids together an Atari, but after that consoles were not found in our household, just computers that had a functional use.

That mother, regardless of her financial status is a fool, kids should not get that sort of booty at christmas, no wonder our society is in tatters. I was hoping that one positive side of the current depression would be that people would become slightly less dependant on possesions, this thread is making me lose any hopes I had. Now I'm not saying we should not have any benefits of modern technology, but, for instance, one xbox per household is plenty and learning to share is something that should be considered a benefit of having siblings.

Capt'n Midnight

thetonynator wrote: »

Theres a limit on 188%APR in this country afaik.

Not too sure about this but isn't there some sort of handling or account opening fee, so they can get another €10 or €20 for the week ?

Capt'n Midnight

ascanbe wrote: »

Is your university actually responsible for printing/issuing this magazine? With that ad in it?

Some student union [insert-expletive] got a large chunk of comission for getting that ad

find them and explain how you feel to them, preferably in an area without CCTV cameras or withnesses

LETHAL LADY

Just got one of these very reasonable loans have to type fast whilst they take away me keyboardddddddddddddddddddddddddddd.