Katy got some postal spam yesterday from a “personal finance” company that targets people with a bad credit history. It’s all shiny and lovey and sparkly, telling her how she can get lots of stuff for cheap, and how she can “make this Christmas the best ever!”
Among the shiny-shiny, there’s this little gem:
At first, I thought it was a typo, but no. It does, in fact, say 235.5% APR.
And if things couldn’t get any sillier, I went on their website and had a play with their loan calculator. There’s a little disclaimer, hidden away in the FAQ, that reads:
The Annual Percentage Rate (APR) on your loan will depend on how much you want to borrow and how many weeks you choose to repay it over.
So, if you try and borrow the maximum amount of money they’ll lend (£500) for the shortest period (23 weeks), it works out like to a weekly payment of £32.50, for a total repayment of £747.50. In other words, you get charged an APR of 545.2%
And people wonder why the UK has one of the worst credit profiles in Europe.