To think people take the absolute P**s when it comes to paying their own way

[chopper23]

I am member (lurker) on a Facebook group that helps people get their debt wrote off, advocates not paying TV licences etc the group gets my back up, but it provides some regular entertainment. BUT tonight has shocked me, people are actually calling our NHS disgusting for charging for prescriptions ?! Are people crazy, do people want everything for free in life?

Grrrr I just felt like I needed a little rant

kpo I actually do agree in a way - I think that cultural output is really important and should be publicly funded, I just strongly feel that it shouldn't be publicly funded by a flat tax. £12 per month is a hugely different amount of money to different people, and if we think that cultural output is important enough to publicly fund, it makes much more sense just to have it funded through general taxation which means that people pay relative to their income.

I'd also argue that if people are watching dross it's because they want to watch dross - Netflix has a huge amount of BBC content to watch, and a wonderful array of documentaries - it's not all American cartoons and soaps!

Genuine question for those who won't pay for a TV licence.
How many of you pay for Netflix?

abra, yes for BBC iplayer but not for any other catch up services.

Twilight me & DH along with all of our friends have Netflix. Some of us have Amazon prime tv too but not so many, and a couple also have nowtv.

Hey, I simply disagreed with the statement I quoted, which is incorrect: "It's not the lender's responsibility to ask "Can this applicant repay the loan?"

For example (and there are many) it's incorrect according to the Consumer Credit Act 1974, which states that "Before making a regulated credit agreement the firm must undertake an assessment of the creditworthiness of the customer." 55B(1)

That's all I said and that's all I meant. I was pretty clear, I think!

Credit Risk Assessment is a core responsibility of lenders.

It's a responsibility owed by its management to its investors and depositors; not to its borrowers, who are responsible for their own actions.

/me spreads hands

I feel like you're being weirdly disagreeable about nothing that can be determined from the text. I cannot be more specific or clear. So carry on.

Yes, the Act says what it says: but it does not say that borrowers are not responsible for repaying their debts. The court can grant relief in limited circumstances but failing that the debtor remains responsible.

Don't forget that a lot of lenders have got into trouble for scamming their customers, too. Mis-sold PPI, encouraging people who are already in trouble to borrow more money, utterly extortionate rates of interest, enormous penalties for being one day late with a repayment...

Sometimes, poor people need to borrow money. Don't bother trotting out the usual bullshit about 'having to budget' and 'going without'. Sometimes it's an emergency cost (kid's only winter coat gets trashed by school bullies/you need to call a plumber or get another emergency repair done and it's too urgent to wait for the landlord to get round to it), sometimes your benefit payments have been fucked up or you work for the sort of employer who pays you late or frequently makes 'errors' in calculating your wages...
And if you are longterm poor, most banks, etc, won't lend you money at all. You probably don't have anything left you could pawn/sell. So you have to go to a payday loan company, who will charge something like 400% APR. You haven't quite caught up next month, so you just pay the interest, or part of the loan... and it starts to spiral so you end up owing something like two grand for an initial loan of £75.

So, yeah, helping someone who has already paid £300 for an initial loan of £75 to fuck the rest off doesn't seem a very bad thing to me.

I joined the group, thinking it may offer some advice as I have debts. Some from when I was young and stupid and were bought by debt collection agencies- I pay the monthly fee & accept the default as it's my fault as I was negligent. I was also hoping for some advice on Lloyds banks new overdraft fees as mine would go from £80pk to £260!

I am lucky I can afford to repay; but I also believe I should. I could of tried '3 lettering' my 2 debts and potentially be over £3k better off - but it's my fault!

As for prescriptions, we are very lucky in the UK, £8 or whatever it is for a prescription is nothing compared to the cost of private health care. But I do agree with subsidised prescriptions for those on life changing medications.

TV licence - just bloody pay it until we're told not too.

Sky - should be credit checked before signing up & blacklisted if you have your debts 'wiped'. It's a choice, not a need.

Water bills - why the fuck does anyone think they shouldn't pay for fresh, clean drinking water and for their waste to be disposed off??

It's a responsibility owed by its management to its investors and depositors; not to its borrowers, who are responsible for their own actions.

No - as a condition of their consumer credit licence, lenders are obliged to consider ''the ability of the customer to make repayments as they fall due over the life of the agreement' (FCA Handbook CONC 5.2)

Legally and morally, both parties should assess the affordability of any loan. It's not enough to say either 'they shouldn't have lent it to me' or 'it's their own lookout how much they borrow'.

Don't forget that a lot of lenders have got into trouble for scamming their customers, too

Nailed it dead center.

How about banks making risky loans, rebranding them as AAA, then selling them on. Shit broke the economy.

We are still picking up the tab.

(To be clear re my response about us all having Netflix, Amazon prime tv, now tv - none of us are skint, we just don't want to pay for a service that we don't use, so these on demand services along with free ones like channel 4 and itv catch up services work well for us and we're happy to pay accordingly. It's paying a flat fee for something you might only use a couple of times a year that we all object to!)

I paid for a prescription yesterday for medicine that will hopefully stop my body seizing up. Didn't mind paying £8.60 at all. This morning realised that I didn't have to pay as I'm pregnant. Still don't begrudge paying the prescription charge. Imagine how much more we could pay in the US. No thanks

If anyone doesn't watch ANY live TV, or watch BBC online on any device (iPlayer, CBeebies iPlayer etc) you can legally opt out of the TV license.

But if you opt out, and lie about what you watch, you risk a fine.

Oh, and you can do it quickly and easily online.

That group is a mix of people genuinely struggling and people who just think they're entitled to grab what they can and make the people pay for it.
There's a slight tone of freeman on the land bollocks there!

What makes me especially irate, water. Why should I pay when water is free? Oh so you'd rather these companies stop maintaining pipes, stop cleaning it and leave us all to bath in shit yes? I mean what do they think makes it suitable to drink?!

Another one was a family which racked up about £2 grand on electric and gas. No intention of paying it yet objected to meters after 2 years of this debt going higher and higher. I did and do sympathise but seriously? You can't pay the amount asked and want it free? Wouldn't we all?!
I'd rather have the £100 a month I pay back to myself

Oh so you'd rather these companies stop maintaining pipes

They are not concerned about leaking pipes:

www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/may/11/water-companies-losing-vast-amounts-through-leakage-raising-drought-fears

mothertruck3r it is exactly that argument that the rich use to avoid paying tax, that it's all legal so why should you bother. It's virtually impossible to plug all loopholes as they just change their schemes as soon as one loophole is plugged. There are highly paid whole departments of global accountancy firms just working on this stuff.

It's changing people's attitudes that works better. If it's seen as scummy rather than socially acceptable to swindle the system maybe fewer people would do it.

For instance if everyone shoplifted, the courts and the legal system just couldn't cope and would collapse. Society relies on a critical mass of people doing the honourable thing. Just because you can cheat the system, just because it's legal to use more resources from the state than is fair, doesn't mean it's right. And remember you're not just taking from the government. The government doesn't have any money itself, you're taking from ordinary people who pay into the government funds.

I don't buy Netflix, Sky, TV licence or any of the others.

I don't think companies should be making a profit from providing water. This, along with electricity and gas are essentials and imo should be non profit and under the control of the state.

If you borrow then you should pay it back if you can. I do agree that it is wrong to borrow it with no intention of making the repayments. However, if you were allowed to borrow way more than you could reasonably repay based on your circumstances, then the lender was irresponsible too and I have no sympathy for them if people default. While I agree that they do credit checks for the benefit of the shareholder not the borrower, to lend knowing that a person is likely to default and incur huge fees is immoral and they deserve to lose that money.

I can and do pay for Sky. But they do take the mickey with pricing. If someone does manage to get out of paying I won't be losing sleep over it.

TV licence is not about the money, more the compulsory nature of it, whether you want the BBC or not. As has been stated, TV isn't essential to the nation, so you shouldn't be taxed for it in the same way you would be taxed for other services that you may not use (schools, for ex), which are essential to the nation.
Fwiw, I would probably pay for the BBC just for Sherlock but it should be my choice. I also think the beeb should raise its game if it is going to command compulsory payment from us all - the crap that is Strictly belongs on ITV. The bbc should be bringing us the less commercial but good quality programming, not the stuff you get on every other channel.

A lot of people don't watch live to these days and I've seen many members there and outside of that group paying for it when they don't need it.

They may not watch live TV, but they still need a TV license if they want to watch anything on BBC iPlayer.

We don't pay for prescriptions here (or water rates).

It galls me when people get stuff on prescription that they can easily afford in the likes of home bargains. I do know that it's not always as clear cut though. For instance my mum gets a lot of paracetemol on prescription for a chronic pain condition in one go but if she was to buy them, she could only buy a smaller amount due to restrictions.

I hate paying for a tv license as I don't watch any bbc, catch up or listen to the radio. Easier just to pay it though. At least with Netflix, it's cheaper and has better choice.

They may not watch live TV, but they still need a TV license if they want to watch anything on BBC iPlayer.

Everyone I know who doesn't watch live tv was pretty irked at that rule change, but decided that there was no way that watching the occasional bit of iplayer was worth the full fee and stopped using it. I think everyone is quite clear on the rule change now, and I think that if you try to watch something on iplayer catch up now it actually stops you to remind you that you need a tv license to watch.

I also think the beeb should raise its game if it is going to command compulsory payment from us all*
*
Couldn't agree more - when the rules changed to mean that you had to pay the full license fee just to watch iplayer we thought about it briefly before deciding that there wasn't anything that made it worth paying - not when you can get so much on Netflix and elsewhere on the Internet.