Meeting new people can be exciting and so can a summer fling but how can you be sure that you’re not involved with a loan shark?
It can all start quite innocently – you meet someone online, in a pub or club or even on a blind date and you hit it off straight away. He (or she) buys you dinner, makes lots of romantic gestures and it’s all going great.
You happen to mention to him that you’d like to go somewhere nice for your summer holiday and he offers to lend you some money so that you can go away now and not wait. He could even tell you that you don’t want to waste money paying interest on credit cards and that it will be cheaper if you borrow from him.
It could be weeks later when you pay him some money back and then he tells you that what you owe has gone up and now the amount you owe becomes a lot than you borrowed.
It’s also common of loan sharks to use threatening and intimidating behaviour and even make sexual demands as an alternative to paying back in cash. So now what do you do?
The first thing to remember is that you’re not at fault. You haven’t broken the law and you’re not alone in this.
The best thing you can then do is to report the loan shark to the Illegal Money Lending Team who will give you free advice on your options. You can report them online or phone 0300 555 2222. Everything you tell the team is confidential.
Be aware of how to recognize a loan shark and only borrow money from financial organisations, like credit unions, that are FCA regulated and will issue a credit agreement when you borrow so you can read the terms and conditions upfront and know exactly what you will repay.
