Comments on: Wonga – greedy and irresponsible lending

By: Alex

Alex — Sun, 18 Dec 2011 03:10:23 +0000

payday lenders are fleecing people who are short of cash,and this is so called responsible lending.

By: jade blair

jade blair — Sat, 10 Dec 2011 17:40:46 +0000

I have never had a problem with wonga, always paid back on time and the money always came through quickly.
i dont think the interest is that high, the transfer fee always bumps it up though, if you arent a wonga customer yet you can always find a promo code to save £5.50 on your loan (the transfer fee)

I also beleive that the customer service on the phone to wonga is pretty poor but if you email them or facebook them the response is alot better!

By: windows vps

windows vps — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 02:26:00 +0000

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By: jonesxxx

jonesxxx — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 22:16:22 +0000

Thanks for drawing our attention to this. yes, I think I have seen the posts these people leave.
This may be the article you are talking about:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/aug/03/london-public-relations-reputation-laundering

Also a bit here

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/aug/05/bbc.marketingandpr

and here The Guardian reveals a particularly despicable act by Hill & Knowlton:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2001/oct/04/socialsciences.highereducation

By: Full & Frank

Full & Frank — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 21:35:08 +0000

The Guardian newspaper ran a story on the “perception management” companies which pay grunts to scour the internet on behalf of big-hitting corporate clients.

These termites resort to fake personalities and phony stories to present false impressions about their clients’ credibility and honesty.

Hill & Knowlton is one of the best known PR houses and perhaps one of the most disreputable outfits in a repugnant industry infested with hoods, perverts and gangsters.

H&K was infamously caught with its pants down after being nailed for telling whopping lies on behalf of the CIA during Desert Storm.

Wonga.com is just the sort of rogue outfit that one would expect to engage the scum services of “perception management” company.

By: J.

J. — Thu, 18 Aug 2011 10:00:00 +0000

Companies still have costs to cover, they have to do marketing so people become aware that they have product to offer. Typically this can cost £10-20 for the company, they also need staff to handle their business – thus they will have costs of above £20 for every new client they get regardless of size of the loan. If they were going to offer a “decent” rate of only 30% APR instead of an obscene rate of 4000%, then their income would be only £1 for a £100 loan over 1 month. This would in no way enable the companies to recover their costs of creditscore, marketing, banking costs or staff…? So realistically, small short term loans cannot be given at any APR you’d find acceptable – thus people must denied access to small short term credit if Wonga style companies were to be banned.

By: J.

J. — Thu, 18 Aug 2011 09:50:54 +0000

If you don’t like Wonga – simply don’t use them! Good that there’s a choice, so that those that need short term loans can actually get access to loans rather than being shut out from the possibility or having to seek illegal loan sharks instead of legal ones. It’s easy to say for people with plenty of access to cheap capital to be dismayed by companies offering loans at high APR. In socialist nations like France and Belgium, people are simply shut completely out of the market – max loan rate in Belgium is ca 12%, thus everybody gets rejected unless they have a perfect profile, basically a profile of a person not needing any unsecured loan. I’ve personally borrowed money at 35% APR to start a company, and have no regrets. No bank would offer me any loan, so my credit cards was the only way. If 4000% APR was the only way, I’d still do it – when the loan is short term, high APR can be acceptable. If you look at paying £20 for borrowing £100 over 2 weeks – it may for some people be acceptable – but it’s 13,104% APR! Repr. APR is a good measure to compare costs, but as we’re talking about small loans over short time, the APR looks funny.

By: steve perry

steve perry — Sun, 24 Jul 2011 17:22:21 +0000

hacked off …. come to my site http://www.saynotopaydayloans.co.uk – sign the petition and keep an eye on things to develop, i’m going to be taking Wonga and the rest of the industry head on.

By: hacked off

hacked off — Sun, 24 Jul 2011 10:34:34 +0000

i am ****ed off to the back teeth with a stupid wonga.com advert on every ****ing webpage i visit. please everyone in the world please take out a 400quid wonga.com ( attached to a bank account you can close shortly after aquiring the loan ) and never pay it back. then hopefully they will go bust and stop flooding the internet with their crappy patronising adverts !

By: steve perry

steve perry — Sat, 23 Jul 2011 17:01:27 +0000

All interesting stuff here. I can justify my opinion through having stupidly taken 64 individual loans in 18 months from a dozen different lenders. And I am also man enough to admit it was a massive mistake and I must blame myself for it. However, the fact is the entire industry is a shambles. Granted, in theory payday loans can work and sometimes do work (on occasion), forget APR nonsense, if somebody borrows just once and repays on time then they really havent paid that much for their troubles. The real issue is the repeat customer and spiralling debt concerns. How many people defend payday loan companies by stating they used them once and it was fine. No, never, its ‘ive used them several times’ or ive used them 5 or 6 times. What is supposed to be a one off loan as an emergency fix never ends up that way. If someone is constantly borrowing from payday lenders then they are not in complete control of their finances and quick and easy credit is not the solution. Then there is the situation of rollover loans, how many times should you be allowed to rollover a loan month after month before the loan company should step in to say hang on, theres something not right here. But then again why would they, theres no money in it. The payday lending model needs people to come back for more, one loan just doesnt do it for them. The entire system needs to change, rollovers banned, cooling off periods between borrowing, better credit checks – how many of these sites application forms ask one single question about other financial commitments! Mortgages, phone bills, gas bills, travel cost, anything!?!?! Hardly any. The industry must be changed for the sake of the people too naive and desperate to help themselves, which is why I have released a book, namely ‘when payday loans go wrong’ by Steve Perry and I have also just launched a campaign online to rid us of this menace, hope you dont mind me listing http://www.saynotopaydayloans.co.uk – I would appreciate people viewing it and signing the petition etc. It is essential we act now before it is too late. JonesXXX thanyou for posting this article. I have an absolute mountain of evidence against the industry, if you want to work with me moving forward on it, give me a shout, the email contacts on the website.