“As long as we got paid, I wasn’t bothered.”

A former debt collector blows the whistle on the unscrupulous practices of high-cost lenders.

Our partner organisation Thrive Teesside persuaded a man who used to be an Area Manager for a large doorstep lending company to tell his story. It paints a frightening picture of how these legal loan sharks use high-pressure techniques to trap their vulnerable customers in debt:

You would tend to find that agents really only cared if they got paid, because they were self-employed. We didn’t care whether customers could afford to pay their gas, electric or anything else – feed themselves. As long as we got paid, I wasn’t bothered.

In September we will launch a new publication and campaign action targeting the high-cost lenders who got Kath into so much trouble. Help us to stop the legal loan sharks and ensure that people like Kath pay Fair Prices.
This work is part of our ‘Food, Fuel, Finance’ programme, tackling the ‘Poverty Premium’ paid by people on low incomes for everyday goods and services.