Post by Deleted on Jan 20, 2019 22:09:58 GMT
I worked part time 3 evenings a week for this lot a few years ago when I needed the cash to maintain payments to me ex and our son and the overtime at my main place of work had dried up. They sold small cash loans of between £50 and £1000 over short periods of up to 12 months (describing them as payday loans is a bit simplistic tbh) to people who would ordinarily not get credit anywhere else at usurious interest rates that were illegal anywhere else in Europe. 1200% APR was not unusual!
As an "agent" I could sell loans up to £250 on my own discretion and £500 on the night on the back of a phone call to my Manager. Repayment terms were weekly and they paid me an amount to collect it but most of the financial reward was skewed towards flogging new loans. I had a round in Macclesfield on the Moss Estate and surrounding areas and very often ended up selling repeat loans to existing clients who'd frequently reached a point where they were that desperate they had no alternative. The lender was selling high risk loans (i.e a good chance that they would not get their money back) to a clientele that nobody else had any time for and so claims that higher rates of interest were acceptable could, to an extent be justified. There is a world of difference however between "higher" and "illegal anywhere else in Europe".
Happily it only lasted 9 months or so but for me at least it shined a light on a very vicious circle. A vicious circle of low skill, low wage, low security employment, of moderate housing and with little, if any, opportunity to improve. We're governed by a political class who believe that there is no role for Government in the daily lives of the population of this country. They are a class of political zealots who believe that the difficulties faced by a very large part of society can only be resolved by the "free market". The reality is that they have no interest in society as they don't live or work amongst it and have no understanding of it. They turn a rather narrow and very selective interpretation of the work of people like Adam Smith and John Stuart Mill and a slavish devotion to the half arsed utterances of Friedrich Hayek to the furtherance of their own greed and those of their financial backers.
I have no doubts about why so many people were angry enough to vote to leave the EU, I do wonder how angry they will become when they find out that the self-same political classes whose policies have so royally and repeatedly screwed them over have actually barely started and that things can and are about to become so much worse. Anybody who wants a glimpse into the Tory view of the future should try "Britannia unchained" by, amongst others, the deeply unlovely Priti Patel and thoroughly gormless Dominic Raab. It's Turgid stuff believe me but read it and weep! And these bastards are very close to getting their way.