I borrowed £3,000 from a loan shark and will end paying back £8,400
- Have you borrowed from a loan shark? Email: [email protected]
Britain is in the midst of a loan shark epidemic. Most recent data suggests more than 1million a year turn to illegal lenders in desperation.
In many cases, people don't sign paperwork and are then left paying the price, with interest that can triple.
Below, Susan* tells her story - and how she now lives in fear of the person she borrowed money from.
![Overwhelming: Susan will have paid almost triple what she borrowed by the time she finishes repayments (stock image)](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2024/07/08/15/87073729-0-image-a-16_1720450024459.jpg)
Overwhelming: Susan will have paid almost triple what she borrowed by the time she finishes repayments (stock image)
'I think as long as he gets his money then he'll be okay,' Susan tells This is Money.
'But if we don't pay then we have been told that we'll get a kicking, for both me and my partner.
'I don't want that to happen in front of my son.'
Susan borrowed £3,000 last October, from 'a friend of a friend'. At the time, she didn't realise that she would be paying back much more than what she borrowed.
Despite having started replaying the loan since October, Susan won't have paid completed paying it off until this December.
In total she expects to pay £8,400 to the loan shark, and if she doesn't pay, she has been told 'it won't be pretty'.
'We've got to meet the payments,' she said. 'There is no other way around it.'
Susan is paying £600 a month, £200 for each loan she took. Initially, she borrowed the money in order to buy essential items for the flat she was moving into, and for a council tax bill for a house she shared with her ex-partner but hasn't lived in since 2018.
She no longer speaks to her ex, and says the entire debt has been left down to her.
'I met my fiancé three years ago and he was in a halfway house that he could only stay in for six months. So we had to get a loan to buy a fridge, a freezer and beds.'
She said: 'We expected to be paying back what we borrowed, which was £1,000 per loan. Then we found out, because it's a loan shark, that we would have to pay back £2,800 per loan.
'If we'd have known at the time then we wouldn't have taken out the loan.'
Susan has no paperwork setting out the terms of her loan.
This also means that she has little evidence to illustrate her predicament if she was to report the illegal lender.
Rebecca Lamb, external relations manager at Money Wellness, said: 'We actively ensure that our advisers respond to suspected and reported illegal money lending by either signposting victims to relevant services or providing direct support'
'By signposting to Stop Loan Sharks, we help customers report unlicensed lenders targeting vulnerable people.
'They'll then be investigated by teams made up of specialist investigators and victim support officers. These can include police, trading standards, and debt advice.'
'Like in this case, illegal money lending is not enforceable through the courts as the debts are not provable.
'We wouldn't typically view these debts as qualifying debts and as these are unlicensed/illegal lenders, and usually lending repayments are not affordable or not an allowable expense in some advised solutions.'
Even if Susan did report the loan shark, his identity has remained hidden to her the whole time.
'I don't know who the person is, he isn't a registered lender, he is a person my friend knows, sort of a friend of a friend,' she said.
At the time, Susan needed the money and an acquaintance said to her, 'this person can help you out'. With her partner in a halfway house, it seemed an easy way to borrow money without having to apply for traditional forms of credit.
But she hadn't considered what issues this loan could bring and didn't realise she'd be paying almost triple what she borrowed.
While she expects to meet the payments, Susan says the experience has been a struggle - and wants to warn others of the dangers.
Soon after taking out the loan, Susan was diagnosed with cancer, and unsurprisingly her thoughts about the loan slipped to the back of her mind.
When she was diagnosed, she said the loan was the least of her concerns.
'I thought, "oh god, I'm going to die", you know, cancer is a big word,' she said.
'The doctor put me on antidepressants because of it. It has been hard for me, it has been hard for my partner, we didn't realise how much we were going to have to pay back.
'It has been a rough time,' she said. 'I don't even know if the treatment will work and I am thinking about that all the time, I don't want the loan hanging over my head.'
Anyone who believes they might have been targeted by a loan shark can contact the Stop Loan Sharks 24-hour confidential helpline on 0300 555 2222, email [email protected] or complete an online report form at www.stoploansharks.co.uk. Live Chat is available on the website from 9am to 5pm, Monday to Friday.
*Name changed
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