to think that this should be illegal?

[MaryMotherOfCheeses]

Typical 2356% APR

www.quickquid.co.uk/

Are people really that desperate that they'd fall for this?

It must be tough - especially when there are so many things that their friends have that are forbidden. I guess being an independent singleton has made things easier of DSis.

Loudlass, could you not try to get a breadmaker in the sales or off ebay? They are great, you put all the ingredients (cheaper than a loaf in the long run) in at night, nice fresh bread in the morning, no fuss or cooking from you.
It'll save you loads of money in a month or so.

Loudlass - if your DS has been properly diagnosed as a coeliac, then you are entitled to bread, pasta and a huge range of other things on prescription.

Go and see your GP - I'm surprised they haven't offered it to you, I know how massively expensive GF things are (having a coeliac son myself). I too, cook everything from scratch for him, but with a loaf of GF bread at £2.50 it soon mounts up.

When DS1 was GF we got 12 items per month for free on prescription. It went up as they got older, and this was fab. I made my own bread, very easy and much nicer (freezes well too). I got a catalogue from the dietician, and just picked my order from that.

The British banks should be banned from charging huge amounts for being overdrawn.

I have a current account in UK, don't use it very often now but it is handy to have. One time we were overdrawn by £2 and got charged £30.

That is ridiculous.

In Germany we would get charged interest on the amount overdrawn and if the account was overdrawn for a longer period of time, then the bank manager would be on the phone but they would never get away with charging that kind of money.

It means that the following month the account is overdrawn too, and so the bank charges are levied again.

I don't know why the British public put up with it, tbh.

MmeLindt I suppose because they think they're getting "free" banking - not sure about Germany but in Benelux you pay annual charges for having an account - but like you, when I've been OD here it hasn't been the end of the world.

"being poor is very expensive" - how very true.

It's very easy for those who have never experienced poverty to say "oh why don't these ghastly people just get a temporary overdraft with Lloyds?" Lloyds don't give overdrafts for people desperate for 30 quid to feed the kids/get the bus to work.

I'm not sure what to make of it tbh. On the one hand i can see that the rates are so high to the point of being immoral.
On the other hand there is a demand for the service and those who avail of it are presumably adults who are not being forced to do so with a gun to their head but of their own free-will. So I'm not sure if I'd be in favour of a law which essentially restricts any compus mentas adult of engaging in a behaviour of their own free-will which is not to the detriment of anyone else.

You're absolutely right about the difficulties of getting your money on a weekly/fortnightly basis - this is one of the reasons I have so much trouble - one lot pay fortnightly, tax credits weekly and, of course, the publishing house allegedly pays every six weeks but now it's mpre like every three months or so maybe - and yet the rent has to be paid on the same day of the month or the landlord is ringing up screaming as the letting agents insist that unless the payment is made by standing order they 'can't find it' in less than three weeks to pass it on to him... Hence the necessity of using places like this.

I once worked for a software company who wrote debt management software for the sub-prime market.One of the selling points of the product was that the interest rate field was big enough to get 4 digits in !

I think the reason that the British public 'put up with it' is that fundamentally the banks don't want poor people as customers.

They like to attract middle income and upwards customers - who are able to have free banking (because they just have an 'insurance' overdraft limit just in case), low interest loans through mortgages, credit cards and personal loans. People in that position get a good deal from the banks and they are the customers that they want.

Unfortunately the poor get a really shitty deal, but that's the free market at work. The bank doesn't care if they lose their custom or not, those with CCJs etc can't even get a bank account elsewhere.

If one bank started charging everyone a small fee each month then they would lose the customers that they want so it isn't a viable plan in terms of the business.

It's really shocking to read threads like this I think. To change it would require regulation and there would be a lot of squealing from those who are more lucky.

Yes, Skihorse that is true, that the banks in Germany generally charge a small fee for the account. Some banks do not now but still manage to make money.

Lets be honest, the banks are not making their money from the thousands of normal people paying ?5 a month for the 'privilege' of having a bank account. That must represent only a tiny drop in the oceans of the banks profits.

I suspect brettgirl that banks love poor customers, they make a lot of money out of them.

[dons flameproof suit]

I sat this not to defend quidquid or their competitors but I think we have to bear in mind that the costs of admin for small loans is going to be greater (as a percentage) than of larger amounts. If you took a £100 loan, the interest rate of 5% would mean you'd pay about 10p a week in interest and at 20% (roughly what many credit cards charge) it would be 40p. Yet the lender has the admin of setting up the account and there is the risk of default which is much higher for the sub prime market than the prime or super prime. However lenders are required to give APRs to allow customers to compare rates - this has to include certain fees, so you can end up with what sounds like a massive APR for very short term borrowings which in reality aren't necessarily quite as bad as they seem IYSWIM.

All that said, I really wouldn't use this and I wouldn't encourage anyone else to do so either unless it were better than any other alternative such as not eating or eviction.

I don't think the APR is that relevant. Sure, if you borrow £100k, then the APR makes a huge difference in cash terms, but they are paying same-day, which would cost quite a lot, then you have to consider that it's a very small amount of money to deal with, and the costs are basically the same for £5 as £5000.

£10 on £50, paid same day, is a good deal. £300 on £1500 is a different story, but it's not like they try and hide their charges.

Definitely - if I had a one-off crisis cashflow problem, no-one I could borrow from, & knew that I'd be solvent next week/month, I'd think £10-12 a reasonable premium to get out of the shit.

But IME of being horribly skint, I was never noticeably better off next month, which is of course where outfits like this & BrightHouse et al make their real money.

Also, to be going to these guys in the first place, presumably you've already buggered up your credit rating (been there, got ALL the t-shirts), so that you can't get a credit card/overdraft & just whack the short-term crisis on that; that suggests that your money problems aren't of the one-off, impossible-to-reasonably-foresee variety.

Bloody leeches. Grrr.

An equally bad part of the problem is the way some employers and companies get away with underpaying people and delaying payments: zero-hours contracts etc. If you are very poor ie have been on benefits and jobs are in short supply, you take on this kind of non-guaranteed work which then stuffs up your benefits, you have to juggle a lot and cross your fingers and you often end up having to use payday loans etc because the employer says that there will be more work next week/they are having a cashflow problem/the bloke who signs the cheques is on holiday at the moment.

I had no contract in my last job, so when I was bullied/lied about for no reason whatsoever, it was easier for the owner to cut my hours and make me leave than to sort out the other staff.
The bullying/lying is still going on, but with other people as the victims, and it will never end. I just feel sorry for anyone who takes a job there not knowing what it's like

That left me out of work for another 5 months but I now have a 16 hour contract which is great for a minimum wage job in a small town.
I actually enjoy it too, not the work as such but the place I work in and the other staff, plus I have a great boss who makes things as easy as it can be on all of us.

I hope the high interest loans are a thing of the past for me now, but I've been there and know they are the last resort when you take one.

Notwaving - the GP has had me put him on a GF diet whilst waiting to see the consultant. So no prescription due to no 'official' dx yet. The waiting list in our PCT is 12 months. We've been waiting 9 so far. The reason he's on the diet now is because he was admitted to hospital with internal bleeding, and we have a family history of (dxd) coeliac. When we get the appt, he will have to have a 'normal' diet for 2 weeks/ till he's admitted with internal bleeding again ( at the pain for him) or the test will show a false negative!