Man who killed himself over £20,000 payday loan debt ‘started owing £100s’ – Mirror O

[Johnboy007]

Re: Man who killed himself over £20,000 payday loan debt ‘started owing £100s’ – Mirr

Lol Johnboy, you've been watching Channel 5, for shame ! xx May as well read the Mail and the Express. :doggieyes:

( Just noticed you've gone a funny shade of orange.... Welcome to VIP xx )

Thanks for the welcome Boss lady.
And just what is wrong with the Mail ??????
Could have been worse..
They could have named it FEMAIL msl:

[Johnboy007]

Re: Man who killed himself over £20,000 payday loan debt ‘started owing £100s’ – Mirr

Geoffrey, even though I don't disagree with your views because there are people like that it is an argument that is brought out by times like this and people believe it to be the majority of cases. The truth is this is the majority of cases that reach the headlines and because of the stigma it attaches to debt it is what makes proud people scared of being open in case they get viewed in the same light. When I was made bankrupt I had to have a meeting with the insolvency service and the bloke I met with was half my age. He tried to make me feel guilty about borrowing too much and couldn't see the argument that they had decided to lend to me as much as I had decided to borrow. And before people think I was frivolous I was building a small plumbing and heating business, my turnover had gone from £58,000 in the first year and would have been £380,000 in the year of bankruptcy. The major thing I did wrong was to pay my staff for sitting at home in the snow and Christmas which turned out to be 5 weeks. One of my friends said that he couldn't understand why people would start a business with all the stress and worry attached and I said that if people didn't we would all be self employed. When you invest in these things in the good times, be it personal cars on the drive or company vans, you forget that they are worth less once you sign for them than you actually owe on them so when debt comes calling you find you have to either find the monthly payments or find a lump sum to hand them back, draw your own conclusions.
Johnboy, I am truly sorry about your medical problems. Even though I said my mother had CPD , its what she calls it, it is COPD and she has had it bad for 4 years now (she is 67). I know what you have to live with I myself only suffer with gought attacks but being a self employed plumber trying to work to pay the bills when you cant walk is a stressful and tiring experience. Even when I cant walk though in all public car parks I generally park in the correct places and limp to where I need to.

We have much in common my friend.....
I was a self employed heating and plumbing engineer (many years ago now).
I was also made bankrupt, when a customer couldn't pay for the four expensive heating systems I installed for him.
Consequently I couldn't pay my supplier.
Don't be sorry for my medical conditions , the COPD was bought on by years of smoking (sometimes as many as 50 a day).
Working in dusty and sometimes asbestos related conditions without wearing a mask.
Being nosey, and slipping on ice two years ago, resulting in a fractured femur and a complete hip replacement.msl:
But on the brighter side, the hip replacement never was right, but it did resolve my parking problem. msl:
You take it easy mate....
You are a long time dead, as they say..

[FlamingParrot]

Re: Man who killed himself over £20,000 payday loan debt ‘started owing £100s’ – Mirr

In fact, the two big nearly new cars on the drive, are on the drive because mummy and daddy can't afford the petrol, and can't even afford to pay the mortgage.
Selling two cars would not even raise enough money to ward of court proceedings.

This is a very good point! Cars lose value very quickly, the biggest loss happens when they acquire their first owner, at which point they are no longer 'new' and their price drops by a few grand just by being driven to the owner's house. Selling a new car isn't what you'd call a smart move from a financial perspective.

Another issue raised here is that small savings don't solve big problems, I was saying that the other day to a friend whose rent is £950/month! :scared: And also referring to someone else whose mortgage was over £1.4k/month! :wof: Making your own lunch, shopping in a cheaper supermarket or switching to another mobile network to save £10/month wouldn't go very far towards getting enough to pay your arrears, would it?

A favourite suggestion from some debt advisors and a well known site is to cancel Sky (or any other subscription service). You owe £15k in credit cards (which are unsecured and non-priority debts). You have an extra £30/month. You are depriving yourself and your family of a small pleasure, yet it would take over 40 years to clear your debts by paying £30/month towards them!

Yet the Romanian gypsy, who arrived in this country with absolutely nothing. Within a few months, was able to send thousands of pounds back home to his wife and kids in Romania. Just so they could build an even bigger house than the one they have got.
And where did all this money come from? English benefits system, backed up by European laws.

I also saw that program. :mmph: European laws don't force every member state to pay benefits to everyone who turns up in their country, if that was the case, they wouldn't have had to travel this far, they could just have moved to nearby Italy or Greece, where the climate's much better for a start! They wanted to come here because they'd heard it was easy to obtain benefits.

[FlamingParrot]

Re: Man who killed himself over £20,000 payday loan debt ‘started owing £100s’ – Mirr

Geoffrey, even though I don't disagree with your views because there are people like that it is an argument that is brought out by times like this and people believe it to be the majority of cases. The truth is this is the majority of cases that reach the headlines and because of the stigma it attaches to debt it is what makes proud people scared of being open in case they get viewed in the same light. When I was made bankrupt I had to have a meeting with the insolvency service and the bloke I met with was half my age. He tried to make me feel guilty about borrowing too much and couldn't see the argument that they had decided to lend to me as much as I had decided to borrow.

I don't believe in asking people how or why they got into debt when helping them tackle their debt problems. In most cases it's totally irrelevant and the idea is to move forward and look at what can be done rather than where they went wrong in the past and what they *could* have done to avoid it. As ever, there are exceptions and in some cases it may be useful to know why the person got into debt, for example, in cases of irresponsible lending or when they were pressured into taking consolidation loans (often secured), etc.

On another site people were asked why they took out PDLs. I don't think it's any of our business and I didn't like the sequence of posts where people debated whether it was OK to borrow for a baby's 1st birthday party or for a wedding dress, or just if the boiler broke down (provided it was winter, of course).

[Mrs Constant Worry]

Re: Man who killed himself over £20,000 payday loan debt ‘started owing £100s’ – Mirr

Hello -Geoffrey - I am new here as well. I have often said that I am grateful that we had our two children in the mid 60's and the pressure on them was not like it seems to be now. Fortunately for me they never kept asking for pocket money, etc. In fact one day I thought we should start giving them some and they must have both put their heads together and said we could have some back, they had been saving, to help buy cement! I can recall the time our son decided he wanted Action Man - I think it was - when he saw it and compared it to the advert - he changed his mind.

The moral of the story is here I would never have dreamt that he would have found himself in this position. We too have been parents that only buy for what they can pay for apart from our house.

He has only had long term girlfriends, no children, never a new car and is quite happy with charity shop clothes. Things went wrong for him and he was depressed - severely.

He and I only talk when his Dad is not around because as I have said his Dad can only see if you have got into debt then it is your fault. So here I am trying to help him - now - that he has managed to crawl out of that pit of despair mentally and we are beginning to talk about - debt. Little steps but so painful.x

P.S. This site is helping me to sleep easier at night and try to put things in perspective and I don't owe the money my son does. But I am also carrying, so it seems, the shame.

[meellis]

Re: Man who killed himself over £20,000 payday loan debt ‘started owing £100s’ – Mirr

Johnboy as frightening as it is we haven't moved on, you talk about the risks of smoking and dusty working conditions/asbestos which weren't considered dangerous years gone by. A friend rung me in a panic and told me of another of his friends who as been diagnosed with a brain tumour. This is un-confirmed but his doctor is convinced it is down to working with plastic pipework some of which contains poly buteline.
FP you have been around debt long enough to see through it but people who are new to it just see the headlines and don't want to be associated with being reckless with money hence keep their problems to themselves. I still get people who don't know me or know my issues tell me where I went wrong, how can anybody be so sure they are correct on anything with so little evidence to go on but they are sure that they are right,. Anybody who is at the end of their tether will find this hard to deal with. Sometimes I wonder whether we put too much pressure on ourselves with being brought up with this you work hard and you get a better life attitude. Sometimes I wonder if the people who are happy to sit around and do nothing and don't require much are the clever ones and the so say clever people who run around and take risks for a better life are in truth the idiots.

[Mrs Constant Worry]

Re: Man who killed himself over £20,000 payday loan debt ‘started owing £100s’ – Mirr

Just to say I am still not used to knowing yet 'who is who' but those who have had their own business (like our son) and worked hard and met times when everything seems to go wrong. Here they are now making such a huge contribution in supporting people like me. Thank you.

Health issues many of you are facing is also coming into the open and being aired. If only this poor man had found this site but then you need to be ready and if you are not in that place........

[Johnboy007]

Re: Man who killed himself over £20,000 payday loan debt ‘started owing £100s’ – Mirr

You're right meelie..
We haven't moved on, and maybe it's not a bad thing mate.
I lost a younger brother on his birthday in 2010, from throat cancer.
He was 64, so never lived long enough to even 'sniff' his pension.
He liked a drink, and the occasional skinny roll up.
Being single, he liked girls, his drinking buddies, and smoking, but not necessarily in that order.
It seems, anything that we enjoy, is bad for our health.
Maybe in some cases that is true, in others, it's the strain modern society put on us.

[Johnboy007]

Re: Man who killed himself over £20,000 payday loan debt ‘started owing £100s’ – Mirr

Just to say I am still not used to knowing yet 'who is who' but those who have had their own business (like our son) and worked hard and met times when everything seems to go wrong. Here they are now making such a huge contribution in supporting people like me. Thank you.

Health issues many of you are facing is also coming into the open and being aired. If only this poor man had found this site but then you need to be ready and if you are not in that place........

Absolutely spot on.....
Being in the right place at the right time is what it is all about.
But everything has an opposite.
Being in the wrong place at the wrong time can have an adverse effect.

[Johnboy007]

Re: Man who killed himself over £20,000 payday loan debt ‘started owing £100s’ – Mirr

I don't believe in asking people how or why they got into debt when helping them tackle their debt problems. In most cases it's totally irrelevant and the idea is to move forward and look at what can be done rather than where they went wrong in the past and what they *could* have done to avoid it. As ever, there are exceptions and in some cases it may be useful to know why the person got into debt, for example, in cases of irresponsible lending or when they were pressured into taking consolidation loans (often secured), etc.

On another site people were asked why they took out PDLs. I don't think it's any of our business and I didn't like the sequence of posts where people debated whether it was OK to borrow for a baby's 1st birthday party or for a wedding dress, or just if the boiler broke down (provided it was winter, of course).

FP, surely asking them how they got into debt is a key factor in solving the problem?
Knowing where they went wrong in the past is, in my opinion, a step in the right direction in helping them avoid the same mistakes in the future.
You may consider it 'none of our business', but I have to agree to disagree with you on this point.
If you are discussing debt with a person in confidence, and trying to assist them. Then anything related to that topic is your business.
Just my opinion.:tinysmile_twink_t2:

[Mrs Constant Worry]

Re: Man who killed himself over £20,000 payday loan debt ‘started owing £100s’ – Mirr

Absolutely spot on.....
Being in the right place at the right time is what it is all about.
But everything has an opposite.
Being in the wrong place at the wrong time can have an adverse effect.

Wrong place, wrong people - I have seen that go hand in hand with my two. Hopefully I am explaining this how I mean it to be.

He found 'consolation?' with people who I could see were not there to help but maybe he felt, at that point in time, he was not an outsider. When all was well he wouldn't normally have chosen them as 'friends'. With our daughter when becoming ill there were men who could spot her vulnerability - fatal!

A friend of mine who is a recovering alcoholic said to me how bad it had got and he actually woke up in a skip. His turning point after losing his family though drink was when admitted into hospital. He told the nurse that he didn't feel well enough for visitors and she said 'You haven't got any'. He said then he realised he was really alone. The end of the story is that he has done well and has his life back on track. He told me that he actually wrote notes to himself each day telling himself how well he had done - there was no-one else to tell him. He is now a councillor and I would think a pretty good one.

[Johnboy007]

Re: Man who killed himself over £20,000 payday loan debt ‘started owing £100s’ – Mirr

Wrong place, wrong people - I have seen that go hand in hand with my two. Hopefully I am explaining this how I mean it to be.

He found 'consolation?' with people who I could see were not there to help but maybe he felt, at that point in time, he was not an outsider. When all was well he wouldn't normally have chosen them as 'friends'. With our daughter when becoming ill there were men who could spot her vulnerability - fatal!

A friend of mine who is a recovering alcoholic said to me how bad it had got and he actually woke up in a skip. His turning point after losing his family though drink was when admitted into hospital. He told the nurse that he didn't feel well enough for visitors and she said 'You haven't got any'. He said then he realised he was really alone. The end of the story is that he has done well and has his life back on track. He told me that he actually wrote notes to himself each day telling himself how well he had done - there was no-one else to tell him. He is now a councillor and I would think a pretty good one.

Reading between the lines Mrs C.W, you haven't really opened up as yet,have you?
Maybe it's too painful and maybe you think people will think less of you, or your son.
Not so, as far as I am concerned.
Watching my brother take his final breath, made me realise that there are more important things in life.

[PAWS]

Re: Man who killed himself over £20,000 payday loan debt ‘started owing £100s’ – Mirr

P.S

. This site is helping me to sleep easier at night and try to put things in perspective and I don't owe the money my son does. But I am also carrying, so it seems, the shame.

Please try not to feel any shame; we feel shame because of people who about wagging their finger and as Meellis said, telling people ‘where they went wrong.
Most of these sanctimonious people will claim they are not in debt, start every sentence with ‘in our day we worked for what we got,neither a lender .....:blah:
Now, there are 64 million people living in the UK including children. So how come, if there are so many people are in a position where they can wag their fingers, did a total of 17 million contact the CAB because they were worried. How come over a million logged on here and that’s just two of the many help organisations available.:eyebrows:
Research carried out by much cleverer people than I has shown that people in financial difficulty are just as capable of budgeting as everyone else. Geoffrey, If Bank managers are so good at balancing the books why do so many need to get bail outs?:noidea:
I also agree with Flaming Parrott; the small pleasures get us through the day and giving them up would not reduce our debts and would just make us feel c**p.
I grew up where a sin is only a sin if people know about it. There are people turning up at A&E with all sorts of things stuck in all sorts ofplaces. No one on here should ever feel ashamed.

[FlamingParrot]

Re: Man who killed himself over £20,000 payday loan debt ‘started owing £100s’ – Mirr

FP, surely asking them how they got into debt is a key factor in solving the problem?
Knowing where they went wrong in the past is, in my opinion, a step in the right direction in helping them avoid the same mistakes in the future.
You may consider it 'none of our business', but I have to agree to disagree with you on this point.
If you are discussing debt with a person in confidence, and trying to assist them. Then anything related to that topic is your business.
Just my opinion.:tinysmile_twink_t2:

I know exactly where you're coming from and your views tend to match those of the official organisations. However, it all depends on what you're trying to achieve. If it's some sort of financial education for the future then it's fair enough to enquire, however, in many cases, what people are looking for is a solution to their immediate problems. One reason people come to forums like this as opposed to going to CAB/NDL/Payplan/Stepchange is precisely to avoid being interrogated, chastised, lectured, etc. The prospect of having to answer what they perceive to be awkward questions and the possibility of being told off, no matter how gently, for their mistakes, does put a lot of people off seeking help, which is totally counter-productive.

If, after tackling their immediate problems, they are interesting in finding out how they can avoid getting into trouble in the future, that's a totally separate chapter. In many cases people would have learned their lesson simply from experience, for example, by seeing how credit cards never really get paid off just by making minimum payment and how the interest builds up, or how a £100 PDL which you'd think nothing of taking can spiral out of control, and how much hassle you can get afterwards over such an insignificant sum.

Due to the nature of credit referencing, most people who have fallen into financial difficulties find it quite hard to obtain credit for at least 6 years, often much longer, since they may not default on everything at the same time, or you could get a CCJ years after defaulting, etc. This would automatically prevent them from making the same mistakes, even when they hadn't learned their lesson. :thumb:

That's my take on things, others may have their own opinions.

[FlamingParrot]

Re: Man who killed himself over £20,000 payday loan debt ‘started owing £100s’ – Mirr

FP you have been around debt long enough to see through it but people who are new to it just see the headlines and don't want to be associated with being reckless with money hence keep their problems to themselves. I still get people who don't know me or know my issues tell me where I went wrong, how can anybody be so sure they are correct on anything with so little evidence to go on but they are sure that they are right,.

That's exactly my point. Someone posts something which has to be rather brief to start with, as no-one wants to read a very long post, that doesn't tell the full story, yet there are some (more so on other sites I know than on this one, which is why I prefer it here :grin who are quick to jump to conclusions and pass judgment, without even knowing 1/10th of the facts. :incourt: