Beware the Loan Shark Attack
There one had found a study commissioned in December by the Irish League of Credit Unions found that more than 50 percent of Irish people would get themselves into debt over Christmas. The study also found that some people could take up to nine months to recover from the financial impact of Christmas overspending. Actually for those who resort to desperate last sources of credit, as lenders, it may take much longer to break the vicious circle of punitive interest rates and mounting debt to escape. If the recession infringes more and more parts of society, so too do regular lenders, approved by the Central Bank interest rates ranging from 23 percent to 188 percent responsible.
Traditionally, lenders – or “home collection credit” as some describe themselves – targeted poorer communities through networks of door-to-door agents. Even though there are signs that lenders are expanding their reach. Last year the country’s largest lender, Provident personal credit, increased its Irish customer base of 75,000 to 88,000. According to John-Mark McCafferty result, as head of social justice and policy on St Vincent de Paul, in the run up to Christmas, there was anecdotal evidence of lenders drop leaflets in what would be considered middle class estates in commuter towns on the outskirts of cities such as Dublin.