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