Provident Personal Credit

[Gibson70]

Chaps,

I had an Friends Provident agent knocking on my door yesterday evening, asking if we are interested in getting a cash loan - WTF?!!!

I live in very nice area and why does they think we need a loan for ?!?!! - trying to make a nice big commission?!!! I asked what the APR is and in my horror, the APR for a £300 cash loan is 254.5% APR - total amount payable is £525.00 and cash loan of £1000.00 at APR 189.2%, making total payment is £1710.00 !!!!!! It is a WAY RIP OFF !!!! I told the agent to feck off and dont ever knock on my door AGAIN or knock anyone in my street !!

Provident Personal Credit SHOULD be banned from selling that loan with so HIGH APR - especially at this current climate and it will push people to get deeper in debt. It made me so angry!

Anyone has problems with them before ?

Thanks

[Dave_ST220]

If you knew the kind of people they deal with you would see they have their place.

ETA, that loan is a bargain, some loan shark got over £80K out of a women who borrowsd £500 unless i mis heard at dinner time.

Edited by Dave_ST220 on Wednesday 5th August 13:49

[prand]

i'd also imagine a lot of these loans are repaid quite quickly (tide them over til the giro/benefits get paid in/drug deal done). Still a big rip off, especially if your partner does a runner with the cash and blows it on booze and fags.

[P-Jay]

Bunch of barely legal (but usually not) villans. As for them targeting your "nice" area, the current recession has hit lots of people at every end of the spectrum, but it's the middle classes who are suffering the worst cold-turkey since the banks turned off the credit taps. I bet they do quite nicely now Visa isn't stumping the weekly sainsbury bill for Mr and Mrs middle management.

[playerone]

If they offered you a cash loan then they broke the law. They can canvass for vouchers etc but not loans.

It has its place. In the US states where they capped interest rates there has been a huge increase in loan sharking.

[mcflurry]

Gibson70 said:

I live in very nice area and why does they think we need a loan for ?!?!! - trying to make a nice big commission?!!! I asked what the APR is and in my horror, the APR for a £300 cash loan is 254.5% APR - total amount payable is £525.00 and cash loan of £1000.00 at APR 189.2%, making total payment is £1710.00 !!!!!! It is a WAY RIP OFF !!!! I told the agent to feck off and dont ever knock on my door AGAIN or knock anyone in my street !!

APR's will always appear misleadingly high on small amounts, or short time periods. For example if I lend you £20 for the weekend, and you pay it back with a pint as well the APR works out as 2000%

[vinnie83]

Most people take these 'cash loans' as payday loans - they repay them shortly after taking them out - and in order for the transaction to be profitable in the short length of the loan, it needs to be a very high interest rate.

Much like a pawn broker - who will charge 'rent' on an item until the customer comes to buy it back - that is at something like 1% a day.

Rarely do people take out big loans like this, since the type of people won't be able to afford repayments on the big loans, so they are mainly very small loans which are paid back quickly.