Wonga hacked

A friend of mine asked me for a temporary loan a few years ago. Said they needed it briefly just to make a minimum payment. They would then be able to pay me back right away. I was fine with it in principle (wasn't a large amount to me and I'd have willingly lent it to them on a "pay me when you can" basis). Then they explained they needed it to make a payment on Wonga and despite me offering to help them extract themselves, they declined. So I did lend her the money and she did pay me back right away as she'd promised. But was still worrying. The moment I hear "Wonga" I flinch.
 
I know the principle of these companies is scummy as but there is a reason they charge the interest they do; they are lending to people that probably won't pay them back. If you could do the same thing and charge 50% interest and make money then companies like Wonga wouldn't exist. I would love to know how many people who use these services are just utterly appalling with their money and how many use them out of desperation and through no fault of their own.
 
Hodders said:
... I had me details pinched a couple of years ago and within 3 months had 3 fraudulent credit application blocked and one that went through. I only found out 12 months afterwards when the first 'payment' failed.

I asked if my credit record could have a 'no loans' flag put on it and you can't ! You can PAY to have a caution flag put on that lasts 12 months !

But I have no need for a loan and no desire for one, so the fact that I can't simply have a 'no loans/credit' flag on it is mad. I'm guessing that the financial services industry wants credit to be easy and would rather take the hit for fraud than make it secure and lose the 'spontaneous' credit applications.
Click to expand...

In the US, you can (permanently) "freeze" your credit file with all the major credit bureaus, which prevents any company from searching or otherwise accessing your credit file information. If you do freeze your credit files, companies that you have existing accounts with can still report information about those accounts (e.g. mortgage, loan, and credit card balances). Experian (and a few others) allow you to request special one-time access codes for your credit file that you can provide to companies to access your file without having to unfreeze and re-freeze your credit file (and pay for the privilege). I searched on Experian UK's website and saw nothing about credit file freezing. :( I wonder if it's something that doesn't exist in the UK yet.

https://www.experian.com/freeze/center.html
 
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