Problems with loan sharks being tackled by specialist team

A specialist team is dealing with problems relating to illegal loan sharks, with officials from the team expressing concerns about the number of people that are falling for illegal loan shark finance due to desperation in the current financial climate. One official from the illegal money lending unit covering North Staffordshire said more people were turning to these lenders as a result of the effects of the recession.

The global credit crisis has resulted in credit drying up for many people, making it difficult for them to get the finance that they need, and for many desperate times has led to desperate measures, forcing them to turn to less reputable lenders when it comes to borrowing money.

The problems relating to loan sharks are now being tackled by the Central England Trading Standards Illegal Money Lending Team, which was launched back in 2004. The team is funded by the government and is responsible for gathering evidence on loan sharks.  

As part of their investigation into the practices and activities of loan sharks the team has set up a twenty four hour hotline that allows consumers to ’shop a shark’ and give the team more ammunition when investigating these loan sharks.

As a result of the hotline the investigators recently managed to catch out one loan shark and get him sentenced. The team hopes to be able to catch out many other loan sharks through the hotline.

An official from Staffordshire County Council, where the sentenced loan shark was from, stated: “We hope this sends out a strong message to anyone thinking they can make money illegally. These people prey on vulnerable residents without any remorse which is thoroughly shameful.”

Tags: Loan shark, finance, Shark, loan, credit

OFT launches campaign to stop loan sharks

For a number of years loans sharks have been causing much concern for campaign groups, finance industry officials, regulators, and consumers, with many people falling victim to the unscrupulous practices of unregulated lenders running dodgy operations.

The UK watchdog, the Office of Fair Trading, is now said to have launched a new campaign to warn consumers over the dangers of taking finance from a loan shark. Over the past couple of years more people have been unable to get finance from traditional lenders, and some have been forced to go to loan sharks, leaving them to pay huge amounts of interest and deal with spiralling debt.

It is estimated that around 165,000 may be at the mercy of illegal money lenders in the UK, and many of these people are low income earners living in poor areas of the country according to the Office of Fair Trading. A campaign has already been run by the watchdog, and has saved many people from these illegal lenders and resulted in a number of jail sentences for the lenders themselves.

A new campaign has now been launched by the Office of Fair Trading along with Trading Standards, and it is hoped that this new campaign will help more people to realise the dangers of borrowing from loan sharks and put even more of these illegal lenders behind bars.

Posters, leaflets, and an online advert are amongst the things that form the new campaign against loan sharks, with advertisements targeting those living in low income parts of the country in particular.

The Office of Fair Trading said: “If you have borrowed money from a loan shark, you haven’t broken the law – they have. Loan sharks cause misery to thousands of families and should be stopped.”

Tags: office of fair trading, illegal money lenders, Moneylender, low income parts, finance, Loan shark, people falling victim, finance industry