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Getting tough with credit card companies

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jake-the-peg | 12:41 Tue 27th Oct 2009 | News
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The Government is considering stopping Credit card companies from upping your credit limit without you asking them and making them increase the minimum repayment.

A good idea to help people manage their debt or an unjustified interference in a free market?

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With people spending money they don't actually have, I think even further measures should be taken.

And that is making people more responsible by introducing methods that curbs a person's spending.

Such as making a person come up with a proportion of the total cost of the item, before they can have the rest on credit.
not sure, many people might stuggle to meet the minimum payment let alone an increased one.

this country and our own circumstances have been debt financed for too long. uk household debt is the highest in the world and also the highest in history so eome curtailment is necessary. but in the current climate we are hearing of people who are struggling to pay household bills, such as gas and elcetric etc, and are using credit cards to pay for this. itis a sorry situation.

i had a letter a couple of weeks ago from a credit card company who said that beacuse of the credit crunch they now need to increase my rate. charming. they also decided to lay off a few thousand staff earlier in the year.... and no doubt will fork out some nice juicy bonus for the boss who decided to cut overheads by staff reduction, and increase revenue by upping the rates of all its card holders.

tickety boo.
>not sure, many people might stuggle to meet the minimum payment let alone an increased one.

Surely thats the point, not buying something they cannot afford.

If they cant afford to meet the minimum payment how are they going to afford to buy the full item.
Been a long time coming this.

All credit should be assessed on an individuals circumstances. Automatically increasing, particularly in the current climate, is downright rediculous.
vhg, such is the problem generated by our debt-financed society.

the country can't manage it let alone individuals.
I think they are sensible measures. Not all that long ago the minumum payment was 5% of outstanding balance and generally it was pulling teeth to get a credit limit increase. Ther credit card cheques are being abolished too which is sensible. Credit cards are a useful tool but it is folly to use them for borrowing, I think more education is needed too. I think we can see that some people just cannot control spending on credit when it is so easy.
The phrase, 'closing the stable door after the horse has bolted', comes to mind. Allowing unlimited credit was a recipe for trouble for lots of people.
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Thing is though Sandy the pendulum can swing too far

Do you remember the 70s? My parents set me up with a building society account when I was a child so that I could get in the queue for a mortgage!

Has the state got the right to interfere with a free market where both buyer and seller want the deal - Good old Gordon coming along and saying "No - too much credit is bad for you"

Isn't that the "Nanny State"?

What if Government regulations stopped you getting a loan or a mortgage?
up to a point then it is a "nanny" state. However vast swathes of idiots have demonstrated that they have sh1t for brains on financial matters so mostly I would agree but I think in ths case of credit the governement does have a part to play.
" vast swathes of idiots have demonstrated that they have sh1t for brains on financial matters "

so would that explain why the chancellor has put together his five year borrowing plan which totals £703bn over the next 5 years ? oddly enough, this is nearly exactly the amount of combined debt that the uk economy has assembled since 1945. so in the space of 5 years our national debt doubles. wowser for the financial brainy bods.
"The total amount of personal debt in the UK has fallen for the first time since records began in 1993, the Bank of England has said.
Personal borrowing fell by £600m in July, taking the total owed by individuals down to £1.457 trillion."

We got into our present mess because American banks loaned money to those who had no real chance of paying it back. The amount of credit the banks give here, just fuels excessive borrowing. The banks can absorb the losses made on the people who default on their loans by excessive charging to the rest of us.

In a free market both parties to a loan deal have to act responsibly. This is legislation to reign in the banks reckless lending.
"wowser for the financial brainy bods"

When was the Office of Chancellor of the Exchequer last held by a financial brainy bod?

Alistair Darling earned a degree in Law and Gordon Brown a PhD in Political History. What makes the electorate believe that politicians magically acquire experience in the roles they are dropped into?
"We got into our present mess because American banks loaned money to those who had no real chance of paying it back."

No, we got into this mess because British banks bought those loans from US banks, hoping to make a profit from financial instruments they did not know (or care to know) the mechanics of.
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I agree actually - it's a classic example of how you simply can't allow a free market its head without undesirable consequences

Unregulated Free markets sell drugs to school children.

Of course if you're in the free market you don't like being told what you can can't do and you make a big fuss about "red tape"

But let's remember why the red tape is there - it's there to protect us from the sharks
When was the Office of Chancellor of the Exchequer last held by a financial brainy bod?

i was thinking of the financial brainy bods in the middle east and far east who will be lending these billions to the uk.
ABerrant

That 'we' was 'we the world' (everybody).

American banks screwed up loaning to people who couldn't afford to pay them back. They then packaged these loads up and said they were tripled high rated and sold them to banks all around the world. The banks bought without checking what they were buying leading to the banking collapse and the credit crunch and recession.

But the start of it was giving credit to people with no money.
Not giving out more credit cards and not upping the limit is the answer. All I see happening here is that many will be unable to pay the new minimum limit set and people will either go bankrupt or find themselves becoming friendly with the baillifs. It will bring a whole load of new people into having 'bad cfredit' because they can't pay the new limit.

Look at it from another angle. What if the government said that the sofa you bought at interest free paid for over 18 months had to be paid for in full now to help companies with their cashflow. Would you be able to afford to?
I dont see anything in the link of cancelling credit card loans to Uni students......?
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