Your credit rating is't based on responsibilty.
It's based on how much money the lenders think they can reliably make from you.
(ThomsonsPier consumes, Fri 23 Jan 2009, 12:42, 1 reply)

Ah
So does that mean if I can never pay off my loan/credit card they're more likely to give it to me due to the fact they'll make more money out of the interest repayments than the sum of the total loan/credit card?
(Helo, Fri 23 Jan 2009, 12:45, closed)

Yes.
Banks are businesses and the primary aim of businesses is to make money.
( crackhouseceilidhband Fuck off back to Mumsnet, Fri 23 Jan 2009, 12:56, closed)

cynical but true..
the fact is that I was earning a large chunk of cash, paying for what I could afford, yet had zero credit rating. I was lower than Kerry Catona's IQ in credit terms.

The second I got some credit (I bought a camcorder on interest free credit), I was offered credit cards, loans and free go on the bank manager's daughter, as I was seen as a safe bet.

What their ideal scenario is that I earn a buttload of money and borrow as much as they let me, then I fail to make a single payment and they can then ream me for higher interest, penalty payments AND the total amount borrowed, thus making a huge profit on the balance they lent.

If you extrapolate this, you end up with a system where if one lends ("Are you a thick fucking pikey living on benefits, then why not take out a loan with TwatCo at a reasonable 39% interest to buy your Elizabeth Duke and Burberry?", etc.), they all lend. Years ago (pre-Experian, etc), if you wanted to borrow money, you went to your bank, they looked at your income, the way you had managed your finances and, because your bank maanger knew you, they would make a call on what (if anything) they would lend. This was deemed "unfair" by Brown and his friends, as it meant their electorate (the great unwashed turkey-twizzler-guzzling horde of thickos that fell for their lies) couldn't have all the shiny things that the middle class people had (depsite the fact that they'd worked hard to get them). This was the beginning of the "I've got a right.." period of UK history.

Now, we aren't allowed to say "no, fuck off, you can't have a Maserati, you live in a council house and your only income is the dole - you can't afford it", because "I HAVE A RIGHT TO HAVE IT" is thrown straight back at you. Turn down the scumbag and face a lawsuit. So, they lent to people who normal folk wouldn't trust with a bag of jelly babies and then marvelled at the fact that these pikeys then failed to pay for the TVs, Sofas, Cars and god knwos what else - why should they? They can't have a council house repossessed, if they go bankrupt they still end up on benefits, but with the debt erased, so there is no motivation to pay...

Idiocy, pure idiocy - all done because the low-grade underclass can't be told they can't have something they can't afford because that, somehow, infringes on their "rights".
(Chad, Fri 23 Jan 2009, 12:58, closed)