Wonga goes into Admin because of too many comp claims!

As someone who was brought up in what was to become one of the slum clearance areas of Bolton, I was taught the harsh lessons of life, one of which was you don't get anything unless you can afford to pay for it first!

My parents went out to work for a living and never even used HP (which I guess were the equivalent of getting things on a credit card) let alone going to a money lender!

Also there was no such thing to us as a compensation culture, nobody we knew would ever have thought to make a claim if there holiday wasn't just perfect or if Wanders sold a player and you had just bought a shirt with his number on it, or anything at all like that!

So I find it somewhat ironic that Wonga a pay day loan company as been brought down by those who 'knowingly' took out loans and have now jumped on the compensation band wagon to get their greedy mits on what they must see as free money - although they were happy to go to Wonga in the first place because they wanted something they clearly could not afford at the time.

Just goes to show greed - sky high interest rates/compo culture - doesn't always win in the end!

What do you think?

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-45359395

You're an inspiration to us all.

Natasha Whittam wrote:You're an inspiration to us all.

I was simply brought up to pay my way and not expect society to do it for me.

Maybe if more of us did that there would be no need for payday loan businesses and the compensation culture we have today.

Just a thought.

Sluffy wrote:I was simply brought up to pay my way and not expect society to do it for me.

Maybe if more of us did that there would be no need for payday loan businesses and the compensation culture we have today.

Just a thought.

Some people are desperate. They have no family or friends to help them. If it's a choice of feed their kids with a payday loan, or starve, what choice do they have?

Have you seen the interest rates Wonga charged?  Clearly taking benefit of people in need and more than likely lending to people who clearly couldn't afford to pay a loan too.

Wonga, quickquid and many others have preyed on people who were desperate and the fact it's come back to bite at least one of them on their corporate arse doesn't fill me with sorrow at all.

Sluffy, you can say you pay your way and more power to you but there are plenty of families who simply can't do that not because they're dumb or greedy but because their personal circumstances have changed in a way they can't control or be blamed for. Until recently my family was on the brink of financial disaster thanks to the long term effects of my own illness and it's only a stroke of good fortune and helpful extended family members that kept us out of the clutches of people like Wonga. You need to be a bit less judgemental on this issue my friend, not everyone is in perfect health, has a well paid job or generous pension and not everyone is smart enough to truly understand the fine print when they're desperate.

luckyPeterpiper wrote:Wonga, quickquid and many others have preyed on people who were desperate and the fact it's come back to bite at least one of them on their corporate arse doesn't fill me with sorrow at all.

Sluffy, you can say you pay your way and more power to you but there are plenty of families who simply can't do that not because they're dumb or greedy but because their personal circumstances have changed in a way they can't control or be blamed for. Until recently my family was on the brink of financial disaster thanks to the long term effects of my own illness and it's only a stroke of good fortune and helpful extended family members that kept us out of the clutches of people like Wonga. You need to be a bit less judgemental on this issue my friend, not everyone is in perfect health, has a well paid job or generous pension and not everyone is smart enough to truly understand the fine print when they're desperate.

I've come from a background where we had nothing.

My mother looked after us the children and my dad was a builder and if he had no work we had no money.

I guess he could have claimed some money from the 'social' but there was a big stigma attached to doing that back then and he simply didn't do it.

Ok times have moved on from those days but the lessons I've learned about working hard and saving for what I wanted and making sure I've always had savings to fall back on as stood me in good stead over the years.

I think the vast majority of people knew what they were letting themselves in for when signing up to a pay day loan company - and I would imagine the vast majority of what was loaned was simply not spent on basic necessities.

Obviously I have sympathy for people who find themselves in the predicament you did but without knowing I suggest you acted completely differently from those who use pay day loan companies.  For instance I'm sure you let all of your creditors be aware of your change in circumstances, and possibly some of them gave you some sort of a lower payment period or maybe even a holiday from paying perhaps.  I'm as sure you budgeted what money you had coming in and prioritised spending and cut out all non essential expenditure.  Similarly I don't doubt family and close friends rallied round to help in your time of need.

This is as far as you can get from those who take out their loans to but their hash because their benefits have been sanctioned, or wanted to go on a holiday abroad that they haven't saved up for, etc, etc.

Funny how all these people who rushed to get their payday loans all suddenly flocked to put in compo claims when they thought they could get something out of it.

The pay day loans people and the compo seekers seem to deserve each other imo - maybe because doing the right things financially in the first place means you don't require to be involved in either of society's new additions over the last decade or two.

Save up for whatever it is you want - it's not a hard thing to do really.

Is it?

Sluffy you're still assuming that people go to places like Wonga just for say a better TV or a shiny bauble of some kind. There are some of those to be sure but you fail to see (or perhaps don't want to) that for a lot of families the last few years have wiped out what little savings they were able to put together and in some cases it literally is a choice between a pay day loan or not feeding your kids.

Companies like Wonga show adverts that are at best misleading and at worst outright lies, a fact the ASA ruled on several times and yet they still failed to clean up their act. As a father of four young adults (OK stepfather to two) I can tell you that I brought up my boys and Wendy her girls to think the same way you do, in fact I think the same way you do which is why I did without a PC for so long. But for them we're not talking about buying a gadget or two, the overall cost of living as a percentage of income is now so high that they simply don't HAVE anything left over to save no matter how hard they work. For instance Hannah is working thirty hours a week behind a bar on top of studying for a degree and the wage she gets just covers the rent and her utility bills plus food.

You and I come from a time when rents and mortgages weren't eating anything up to sixty percent of gross income and in a lot of cases it's now at least that. Many of the people who borrowed money from Wonga weren't just impatient to get that 'must have' phone or new trainers mate, they literally had to get some money from somewhere to either keep the roof over their heads or put some food on their table. It really is that bad now mate, especially for the young. Wonga were very quick to offer loans at usurious rates of interest and to literally lie about what they charged and now they've been busted for it. Personally I feel no sympathy for them.

I do agree with some of what you say about saving up where possible but you're operating on the assumption that it's always someone borrowing money for something frivolous when that's not even close to being the majority of these cases. All too often the people who most need and I do mean need a loan are the ones who get charged ridiculous rates that mean they're pretty much trapped in an ever worsening cycle of ever growing debt and it's often due to circumstances they simply could not control.

luckyPeterpiper wrote:Sluffy you're still assuming that people go to places like Wonga just for say a better TV or a shiny bauble of some kind. There are some of those to be sure but you fail to see (or perhaps don't want to) that for a lot of families the last few years have wiped out what little savings they were able to put together and in some cases it literally is a choice between a pay day loan or not feeding your kids.

Companies like Wonga show adverts that are at best misleading and at worst outright lies, a fact the ASA ruled on several times and yet they still failed to clean up their act. As a father of four young adults (OK stepfather to two) I can tell you that I brought up my boys and Wendy her girls to think the same way you do, in fact I think the same way you do which is why I did without a PC for so long. But for them we're not talking about buying a gadget or two, the overall cost of living as a percentage of income is now so high that they simply don't HAVE anything left over to save no matter how hard they work. For instance Hannah is working thirty hours a week behind a bar on top of studying for a degree and the wage she gets just covers the rent and her utility bills plus food.

You and I come from a time when rents and mortgages weren't eating anything up to sixty percent of gross income and in a lot of cases it's now at least that. Many of the people who borrowed money from Wonga weren't just impatient to get that 'must have' phone or new trainers mate, they literally had to get some money from somewhere to either keep the roof over their heads or put some food on their table. It really is that bad now mate, especially for the young. Wonga were very quick to offer loans at usurious rates of interest and to literally lie about what they charged and now they've been busted for it. Personally I feel no sympathy for them.

I do agree with some of what you say about saving up where possible but you're operating on the assumption that it's always someone borrowing money for something frivolous when that's not even close to being the majority of these cases. All too often the people who most need and I do mean need a loan are the ones who get charged ridiculous rates that mean they're pretty much trapped in an ever worsening cycle of ever growing debt and it's often due to circumstances they simply could not control.

Peter most people would take a second job, see the bank manager for a loan, borrow off a friend or relative, see if they could get an advance on their wages, max out their credit cards or even do without before going to a pay day lender.

Most of those who do go to the pay day lenders do so because they aren't credit worthy - and they aren't credit worthy for a reason - because they don't give a damn about getting into debt.

The pay day loan companies know what sort of clients they are going to be dealing with and that's why they charged sky high interest rates because they knew a) most of these people had nowhere else to go for money and b) that it would probably be unlikely that most of the money they would lend would probably be repaid unless they had them on a hook to keep them having to keep returning to them a pay so much every month for as long as they could.

In a way both the payday loan companies and their clientele exploited each other - one because they knew the borrowers had used up all the other places they could go to, and the borrowers thinking that they have no intention of paying the money back - just like they did with their friends and family's and the credit card companies before hand.

Of course that's a generalisation by me and some will not have gone to the payday lenders on such a need or basis - but I'm not having that most of the borrowers of the payday lenders didn't know what they were getting themselves involved in. Of course they did.

I'm delighted these sharks have drowned in their own bile. In the civilised society we should be aiming for, everyone should contribute what they can and if circumstances contrive to hit an individual or family hard our contributions should provide adequate funds to get them through to better times - without charging them 4000% (pre-cap) and throwing them into a spiral of debt from which they may never recover.
The next step is to perfect an equitable and just assessment process and make the appropriate funds available. We just need the right Government to do it.