Sheffield Wednesday and Bolton turn down payday loan sponsorship

[Varadi]

Bolton were sponsored by 188Bet last season, is one really that much worse than the other?

my thoughts as well, throw in alcohol sponsorship into the mix which pass's without notice by most, theres not all that big a difference.

not to mention LIBOR riggers sponsoring the league we are in.

We should limit club shirt sponsorship to companies that always behave in the most advantageous manner for society and then enjoy the fact the football shirts no longer have sponsors.

 

Absolutely. If it's ethics and morality you're looking for, the current Premier League is going to continue to disappoint you.

 

Check out some of the exploitative business practices utilised by the nice chaps who own Man City for instance - goes way beyond anything Wonga could manage.

[STM]

Would they have shown these morals before the outrage over our sponsors. Perhaps these clubs have looked at us and thought better of it.

[Guest palnese]

Don't see anyone bitching about Nike and how they use kids to make their products over in Asia, etc.

[Dave]

*every clothing company

[loki679]

Would they have shown these morals before the outrage over our sponsors. Perhaps these clubs have looked at us and thought better of it.

 

It's nice that we're an example to other clubs of how not to do things.  Gives us a bit of purpose.

[Benwell Lad]

Bolton were sponsored by 188Bet last season, is one really that much worse than the other?

 

I don't understand the hypocrisy either really tbh. I suppose rich people would bet but wouldn't go to a short term loan company so the latter must be the one who takes advantage of vulnerable people.

 

There's quite a big difference.  These scummy loan companies can work for some, particularly in helping people build up some decent credit history, but in many cases they're geared to push people into more and more financial distress.  I don't see the comparison with betting companies, unless you want to see gambling made illegal in this country.  And before you say it, I would like to see ridiculous 1000%+ APR (or whatever) borrowing banned in this country, but part of the fault of their growing prominence needs to be laid at the foot of the more orthodox lending companies and other factors.

 

I know that there are a few people on here who can't see why poor people would choose to borrow £200 before pay day or whatever but that's your problem if you don't get it and I'm not sure why it's still getting peddled as a reason of justification for these horrible companies existing.  "Stupid cunts, being reckless with their own lives/money/choices", it doesn't wash with me in this instance, it reads like a Daily Mail line of thought where the poor being poor is inevitably always their fault.

 

Still think that pay day loans are more likely to be used for self indulgent, luxury, or at least non necessary purchases, by those who are too impatient to wait or save, rather than by poverty stricken individuals to feed their starving children. However I stand to be corrected if evidence proves otherwise.

 

If exorbitant interest rates are a moral issue then it's a deep rooted one that goes way beyond these companies. Mainstream Banks' rates for very short term loans are pretty horrendous too.

 

[The College Dropout]

Would they have shown these morals before the outrage over our sponsors. Perhaps these clubs have looked at us and thought better of it.

Agreed.

[Cajun]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-23078746

 

In many ways Wonga.com is an impressive, even admirable business (and please resist your temptation to send me hate mail - I am feeling delicate).

 

It is, for example, funded exclusively with equity capital, or £100m genuinely at risk of being lost if things go wrong.

 

So, unlike a bank, it has no depositors or creditors who can pull their money out in a panic and bankrupt it.

 

If all lenders were financed in this way, we wouldn't have had the banking crisis of 2007-8.

 

Also its technology, unlike our banks, is world class.

 

Wonga has written algorithms, computer programmes, which determine whether you deserve to be given a loan in seconds, from looking at details about you and your behaviour, such as what email service provider you use and whether you have bothered to look at the company's terms and conditions.

 

The proof of the robustness of this automated credit assessment is that it rejects 60% of applicants and has a default rate on its wholly unsecured personal loans of just 7.5% - which seems remarkably low, since Wonga is by definition lending to those who have exhausted their ability to get money from conventional sources.

 

Nor is it possible to say that what it charges for its per-day is hard to understand.

 

The interest rate is 1% a day, with a £5.50 transmission charge, for loans of up to £1000. Its typical loan is £200 for 15 days.

 

And if you go to its home page or mobile app (and in a way I would hope you haven't found the need to do that), it is staggeringly easy to see within seconds how much it will cost you to borrow what you want for the time period that suits you.

 

If only bank charges were so transparent.

 

“

Start Quote

The case against Wonga would be that there is something wrong with an economy that creates such huge demand for its very expensive money”

End Quote

So any criticism of Wonga would not be that it is a risky, or poorly managed business.

 

Arguably, given the way it is now expanding overseas and also getting into small business loans and creating a new product a bit like a credit card, it is impressively entrepreneurial.

 

The case against Wonga would be that there is something wrong with an economy that creates such huge demand for its very expensive money.

 

Its simple 1% per day interest rate equates to an annual percentage rate of interest a touch shy of 6000%. This is very, very, good business for Wonga and its venture capital backers - and a manifestation of the powerlessness of those who borrow from it.

 

If you hate Wonga, you are probably railing against a world in which millions of people find themselves desperate for money in the course of a year, and have nowhere to turn but a business charging an eye-wateringly high rate of interest.

 

Now there are so-called payday lenders (Wonga, by the way, insists it is a short-term lender, not a classic payday lenders) which are more rapacious and less transparent than Wonga.

 

And maybe the investigation into their practices by the Competition Commission, which has been announced today, will rein them in to an extent.

 

But if you hope that investigation, or indeed regulation and supervision by the newly created Financial Conduct Authority, will somehow eliminate the market for Wonga, or indeed destroy it as a business, well you may be guilty of an admirable but unrealistic naivete.

 

[BottledDog]

\o/

[Stifler]

I wonder how much the journalist who wrote that was paid by Wonga.

 

Wonga obviously don't have the best software out there to look at people's backgrounds when they are dishing out loans to people and accepting another persons card as the means of payment. This has happened to someone I know twice now (and they aren't the type of person who would ever need to use Wonga nor want too), it's also a very common problem with them.

 

When a loan can have no payments for up to a month the interest rate is high, like it or not other countries have APR caps that all lenders have to adhere too regardless of how long the loan is for. 20% for a 15 day loan is very high. Credit cards are the traditional short term loan and you would be hard pressed to find any credit card with an APR rate of over 35-40%, that is including ones aimed at people who have been bankrupt, have poor credit rating and are new to credit.

 

The journalist even sums it up in one sentence.

If you hate Wonga, you are probably railing against a world in which millions of people find themselves desperate for money in the course of a year, and have nowhere to turn but a business charging an eye-wateringly high rate of interest.

Your damn right I hate them because they feed off the vulnerable.

   

[BottledDog]

\o/

[BlueStar]

It's estimated 50% of pay day loans companies income comes from the fines and charges they give people for missing payments. The entire business model relies on getting people to take loans they're likely to have difficulty paying back.