Irresponsible lending? Mums credit cards

[Orangefantastic]

Hi,

Ive just discovered that mum is in a bit of a mess! She’s 75, widowed 2 years ago and for the first time is having to manage her finances. ( dad always did it)

in Sep 2023 she applied for a credit card with a well known high street bank. She says that when she applied there was an error message and she assumed that it hadn’t worked. She applied again immediately and was accepted for £4K limit with an introductory 0% period. A week later 2 cards arrived. Same product etc. it appears that both applications went through and she basically ended up with 2 identical cards, each except the same credit limit. There is a one digit difference between her customer numbers. I can only assume that this was a system error and that only one card should have been issued.

fast forward to now and mum has a balance on each card of almost 4K. She’s panicking. The interest free period is about to expire and her payments will rocket to over £200 per month.

now I’m all for personal responsibility, and I do wish that mum has spoken to me earlier, however she’s an elderly vulnerable woman and I think that issuing 2 cards was irresponsible, even if it was in error.

I think that we need to complain. I’m not expecting the debt to be written off- she’s spent the money after all, however I think it’s reasonable to ask them to reduce it remove the interest if the card was issued in error. Do you think this is an example of irresponsible lending?

I get where you are coming from but it's a stretch. She could have let the bank know of the error. I wonder if you are angling to get some of the debt wiped off the back of this, bit it takes some effort to spend 8k.

It’s certainly irresponsible borrowing - did she not understand how a credit card works? What is she spending it on?

It's not obvious why your mum is vulnerable.

You say she's elderly but is there anything else going on - dementia or equivalent?

It's not irresponsible lending to lend to a 75 year old. Some of them are sharper and more on the ball than I am.

Work for a bank and wouldn't be surprised if you get some of the debt wiped off with the new consumer duty regs

Your mums age and the fact she's widowed doesn't make her vulnerable though?

She must've known she had spent £8k, that's a huge amount and can't be spent without knowing it?

Sorry you lost your dad.

It’s not irresponsible at all. Why wasn’t this flagged up to the bank when the second card arrived?

Under consumer duty she could be vulnerable due to age and life events.

absolutely no dementia but she’s vulnerable/frail and widowed. I also don’t see how her income (pension) would have supported this level of debt being granted.

im absolutely not expecting her debt to be forgiven, and I accept that she has to take some responsibility, however the bank should not have made this available to her

The bank are responsible for your mum's credit card spending?

She chose to spend £8k though - she could have cut one card up, or cancelled it. Why is this a problem of the bank’s creation and not your mum’s?

I agree but she didn’t! Surely the bank should have noticed the error?

Unless you have left out some pertinent facts, your mum doesn’t sound vulnerable tbh

What makes you think she is?

Seriously?

So what constitutes irresponsible lending?

So DM wanted a card for £4000 but got 2 cards and spent double without batting an eyelid. I think it’s irresponsible. It’s difficult to see what the lender did wrong.

Why shouldn’t the bank have made it available for her? She clearly passed the credit checks, so it was okay. Nobody told her she had to max out both of the cards, or even use both of the cards, and she could quite easily have contacted them when 2 cards turned up. You’ve got no comeback here. Even if it was mistaken originally to receive 2 nobody forced her to use both, not contact then to close an account etc.

Other than her age, what is it about her that makes you think she's vulnerable? If she was capable of applying for the card, she was capable of notifying the bank that an error saw her receiving two of them.

Ultimately, she has to own this one. And own her subsequent spending on both cards.

But it wasn’t an error as far as they were concerned! She applied twice, she got 2 accounts

Then went on to spend the max on both of them!

Would she have been given 2 cards by the same lender on the same day? Seems very odd.

Irresponsible lending is lending to someone who can’t pay it back, so these banks and companies that do the “nobody denied a loan” with a crazy high interest rate, or the credit card companies who will still lend to people with DMP’s, bad credit, and whack a huge % on it for the privilege.

My sister is 75.. she's not frail.. she still works for herself and can easily manage a credit card. 75 isn't old at all.

It’s all done by computer. If she passes the credit checks twice, then absolutely she will get 2 separate accounts.

Of course she could and people do this all the time if they need funds for car/home/emergency cash etc. She applied for 2, got 2, and could have called to cancel 1 account if she didn’t want 2. She accepted 2 and has now maxed them both out… there’s only one person to blame for that

That’s great, but your sister is not my mum!!

This! So if I go to Tesco and spend £20 twice in a day, can I cry and demand they refund the second £20?