Payday loans - help!

[Absolutelylost]

My DH and I are separated and in a huge amount of debt. We still share finances, I manage everything now and am dealing successfully with creditors.

We have agreed that I give him a weekly allowance. This has been working ok but he is dreadful with money, the minute he sees it, it's spent. I have asked him a few times whether he is getting money elsewhere as a few months ago, before he got his good new job and was managing the money, he took out 3 payday loans without telling me. I have paid one off fully and have negotiated an interest freeze on the others and am steadily paying them off.

I gave just found out that he has taken out another, only £200, after strenuously denying he would ever do it again. He used my address, which he co-owns with me, but doesn't live here and gave them my bloody landline! He has agreed to give me authorisation and I will negotiate with them.

I know he's not taking responsibility but I know he will ignore it otherwise and rack up interest, affecting the whole family adversely.

Is there any way, a register or something, he can be stopped from keep taking these out?!!

He is an intelligent man with a good job but is like a child in a sweet shop around money!

I suggest the only solution to your predicament is to divorce. You're already separated but you urgently need to legally sever your connection with him, sell (or sign over) the house and so forth. This may leave you worse off in the short-term but it means you can wash your hands of him.

In the meantime, you are not responsible for him but he's exploiting you. Stop paying off his debts and, if more loans are taken out against your address, call the lender and tell them that he is acting fraudulently.

I have to say I agree with the above. It will stop when he has to deal with the fall out for himself. At the moment he knows you will handle it for him so just carries in regardless. You need to completely cut financial ties with this man by any means necessary otherwise I fear you will never get away from the debt. How many chances is he going to get from you?

Being in debt is horrible, I can only imagine the strain this is putting you under. But I suspect he is under no strain what so ever , he just gets to do the fun bit and spend the cash! I would suggest you see citizens advice or a solicitor.

Sorry CogitoEerilySpooky I am going to have to disagree with you - I'm in exactly the same position as the OP with DW. Yet again I found one of her debt bombs this morning. This is going to be a long post so sorry everyone.

Like OP, DW (sorry OP if I'm projecting here) is absolutely incapable of understanding money flow and the downstream impacts that things like PDL's cause.

If I give DW a list of things that she must pay for like travel pass, mobile bill, etc it just disappears out of her head.

So is a relationship termination called for (rhetorical question)? I believe not! I've come to the conclusion after nine years of debt turmoil that DW suffers from something like dys-numismatics (numismatics is the study of currency) and unfortunately DW is dyslexic when it come to cash and debt.

I do believe that money blindness can be cured, its tough, its hard on the people who don't have it to understand it, taking this quote from wikihow

"The modern advancements in the field of medicine and technology have given us an array of therapies, training and equipment that can be used to beat dyslexia."

Therefore, similar techniques can be harnessed to affect a change in how someone understands money.

To start answering OP question. Sorry no there is no register. If someone wants to lend OP DH money they can - in financial terms its called Risk. Even if OP DH is bankrupt a lender can evaluate the Risk and lend money (As with Pay Day Loan's, hence the high interest rate). Sadly, there is nothing that can be done to prevent anyone from acquiring debt.

So sorry you can't fix that particular problem. But what can be done? This is where education plays a part. Somehow you need to find a way to re-educate DH about money.

By the end of June, I paid off £5+k's worth of debt that DW had, it was my choice to bail her out, since then another £2.5k's worth of debt has been run up. As times it makes me really dislike her, and I can be unsympathetic (perhaps OP you may recognise those feelings). But, for better or worse I chose to be with her.

Some will say, its not down to me to manage her financial life, but it is down to me to ensure that the family's financial life is managed and if I was to walk away from this problem, I'd still worry about it. So, from that perspective, I prefer to be close to the problem so that I'm better place to manage and help. Some may also add that I'm a toxic enabler, that as I keep on bailing her out I'm not letting her stand on her own two feet.

So what actually can you do? Well, I think you are actually doing the right things. What you describe is exactly what I do with DW, with an extra dose of nagging about what we could do, if the debts didn't occur. EG a long six star holiday, a car, etc.

You have to find a motivator to help stop him from the debt cycle, You also need to find a way to make him understand that when he borrows money he has to pay more back.

I hope you don't feel that I've hijacked your post, by stating the situation I'm in with DW, it just that your not alone dealing with problems like these and I don't think that severing all ties, legal or otherwise will really help you or those around you that much.

The OP has already said she and her husband are separated.

Sadly the more you sort it out the more he will do it. This won't get better as he has no reason to.

I agree with severing all legal ties and start the divorce. I don't know of any register sadly.

Whether there is a thing called moneyblindness or not, there is another thing called fuckwittery which I firmly believe OPs ex suffer from.

It is up to you whether you want to keep indulging in a spendthrift wife, mirtz, but OP clearly does not want to do this.

Very sensible advice from everyone else.

www.nationaldebtline.co.uk/england_wales/debt_advice.php

www.rightsofwomen.org.uk/

Sorry you are having such an awful time. I think you should also check your credit history with a company like Experian and sever yourself financially from your husband with them if you can. His actions could be really bad for you credit history. Good luck x

hopefully they will help

"So is a relationship termination called for (rhetorical question)? I believe not!

They're already separated...

Payday loan companies don't give a stuff about credit history. Frankly, they prefer you to have a piss poor credit rating as it allows them to jack up the interest more cos they are taking a "bigger" risk on the debtor. The Financial Conduct Authority only really requires that the Lender be transparent over the information that they supply the person taking the debt. If that person doesn't understand then its not the lenders fault as they have given the Terms and Conditions and pointed them in the direction of the information necessary to make a decision.

There is also an issue of fraud here as well, as the OP DH took debt using her personal information without authorisation.

I'm also trying hard to make the point that shitty situations like this tend not to go away easily and can be pretty nasty for all concerned. Especially, if you've started dealing with someone's debt problems, you've made a rod for your won back.

Like taxes and death debt never really goes away.

Here something really horrible for the OP to consider.

Zombie Debt.

If the OP has delt with a creditor and had the debt "written off" say (even though it may belonged originally to her DH). What actually happens is that the creditor sells the debt on to a collection agency at say 5p for every £ owed. If the OP was to acknowledge that debt, eg the collection company contacted her and she said "Oh! yeh I know about that", it would become her responsibility after laying dormant for years. Lovely, eh!

So you agree with me after all?

Well presumably the OP would like to stay away from creditors like pay day loan companies, her credit history is very important. Who gives a stuff about pay day loan companies' preferred type of customer?

OP you could try posting on the Money Saving Expert LOANS FORUM. There are lots of knowledgable people there. (No offence to all the helpful and knowledgable MN'ers )

Thanks everyone. It's a bit of a strange situation because his salary is about 8 times mine, his 'allowance' is about one seventh of his salary. So I'm making the arrangements to 'bail him out' but actually using his salary. My credit record, thanks to him, is pretty lousy but I'm paying back stuff steadily, so I hope it's improving.

He's spending a lot less than he used to, to be a tiny bit fair. I don't want to divorce - I don't want to be separated! That's another long story and part of me feels that by dealing with this issue as a team, it might bring us closer together.

Probably working with heart not head presently. I just reduce any access he has to cash and to monitor the account he uses (in my name too) to check for any amounts coming in - I think he is almost happier as he has less temptation. We're doing a lot better than when he used to manage the family finances!

I know there are hundreds of payday loan co's but this one one won't be lending to him again!

I feel for you, trying to manage someone else's money disasters, in my case DW's - makes me feel like a terrible control freak. As an example, today I'm trying to work out how DW used my card to pay for candycrush saga. It may only be 1.49, but a hundred buy's over a short period of time mounts up.

Its not just the payday loans, subscription services like midas for games fritters away cash.

I feel like a pig most of the time having to ask DW what she's spent, where she's spent it. How she managed to register my card with google play. I really didn't think that I'd be spending a huge part of my married life now, micro-managing DW's spending and peering over her shoulder at every transaction she makes. I've tried the team approach at first, she's look at the statements, look at the spreadsheet, look at the figures... go yup yup yup I understand... ten mins later when I'd ask "so which is the first one to tackle" she'd go "I dunno".

Also it takes up a huge amount of time trying to sort it all out. When in June I discovered DW had run up 5+k's worth of payday loans, she didn't know who most of them were to, what the company names were etc. Cos she'd buried her head in the sand. It took me three days to unravel the mess and then another two weeks sort out a way to pay it off.

Blimey Mirtz that sounds awful. Can you cancel all your existing cards so that she just has a basic preloaded cash card? You could then keep your debit/credit card details safe. Taking out payday loans withour the knowledge of your partners is extreme behaviour. 5K or payday loans is frightening.

Prepaid cash card

That sounds an idea!

The whole thing is very tiring. But at least I can answer the door and phone these days.