From ridiculous interest rates of 1000%+ to poor customer service and tactics bordering on bullying, pay day loan companies get a bad rep.

Image: Philip Taylor PT (flickr)

Putting aside the morals of whether or not they should market quick cash and no credit checks to people with bad credit; they sure don’t make it easy for themselves!

I’ve compiled a list of my five favourite payday loan offers which definitely do not paint them as reliable and trustworthy lenders, with some of them bordering on unethical. Are you ready to be shocked by the marketing tactics these companies employ? Keep reading…

1. The price of love is 1,737%*

Payday lending website Cash Lady was offering up to £300 to make Valentines Day one to remember. Borrowing the £300 for 31 days would mean interest of £75, adding up to a total repayment of £375. Nothing says I love you like 1,737% interest!

2. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket*

If you’ve put all your eggs in one basket over Easter, never fear because Speed E Loans is here to help. I’m not sure how many Easter eggs you could possibly have bought to be in trouble, but offering up to £500 seems a little excessive. I suppose that doesn’t matter if your slogan is “No stupid rules, no paperwork, just straightforward fast cash loans”. Shocking!

3. Bank holiday borrowing

QuickQuid took advantage of the recent May bank holiday with this subtle message, just in case you didn’t know that the banks were closed. Even on bank holiday Monday, you’ll still get your cash within 10 minutes of approval, although I’m not quite sure why a bank being closed for one day means you need to take out a loan at 1,734% Representive APR. I could withdraw £10 from the cashpoint within 10 seconds (faster than QuickQuid) and save myself the expense.

4. Cash from the Chancellor himself*

Taking advantage of the UK Budget update, our friends at Speed E Loans offered up to £500 for their very own Chancellor. How noble of him! This ad is very subtle but it plays on the emotions of people who may struggle more with the new budget in place. Still, they can get £500 in their bank within an hour. I wonder if “No stupid rules” extends to actually repaying the loan?

5. Get your friends into debt

Both QuickQuid and Wonga offer up to £20 if you refer friends on Facebook, Twitter and e-mail to their service. Lots of businesses do have a referral service and it can be a good sales driver, but many believe that these payday loan providers are targeting young people who are not financially savvy with their social marketing. Especially when you consider that a £400 month long loan with Wonga costs £119.98 compared to just £5.88 on a Barclaycard or £30 for an authorised Bank of Scotland overdraft. Still want to refer your mates to a payday loan?

Have you seen any interesting payday loan ads, banners or offers? If so, let us know in the comments and we’ll add them to the main article.

This article was written by finance blogger Ian Nuttall. His most recent article is 58 Ways to Get Out of Debt and he occassionally pokes fun at payday loan companies.

The information provided in this blog is not intended for trading purposes or advice. The information contained herein should not be used for financial decision making. LBi bigmouthmedia is not responsible for any informational errors or actions taken as a result of the information provided. A full disclaimer can be found on our about page.

Image via Gavin St. Ours

By Jade Evans

Moving is a very stressful time in everyone’s life. You’re leaving everything familiar about your world and taking it all somewhere else!

And if you’re lucky enough to be moving into a bigger, better place in this economy (rather than moving back in with mum), congratulations to you! And if you’re moving in with Mum, well, there isn’t any shame in that.

There are a lot of ways that you can save money when you’re moving house, though – and not necessarily things that you would think of immediately, either.

Purge
First things first, reduce the number of things that you’re moving! If you have less to unload, it takes less time, fewer boxes and less space in your car (or truck or van). It’s quite simple. And a rule of thumb – if something is still in a box and hasn’t been unpacked from your last move and take a hint.

Sell the contents, give them away, donate them – you obviously didn’t find them necessary in the past however many years that you have been living in your current location.

Borrow Boxes
Don’t buy boxes! Use old boxes, ask for spare boxes from your neighbors, use wine boxes. There are a lot of boxes around, and you don’t need to spend a lot of money to just buy cardboard to put your stuff in.

Plus, you can go to a recycling center (if you have one nearby) and pick up a bunch of boxes from them.

Eat Through Your Pantry
Everyone is bound to have a good deal of odds and ends in their pantry, and so many people just end up throwing away their food in a move. Don’t be one of those people!

If you have a good deal of advance notice with your move, take the time to inventory your pantry and see what you will actually eat, and then plan to eat it. Don’t keep buying groceries if you don’t have to. Get creative if you need to – breakfast for dinner, or try a new recipe to use that coconut milk that you haven’t touched.

Go Electronic (Where You Can)
Do you still have hundreds of CD’s or DVD’s and also have them stored on your computer? Unless you’re particularly attached to the physical object, get rid of any duplicates that you can in favor of the electronic version, be that music or books, photos or anything else.

I’m a voracious reader, so I understand the connection to the actual, physical object – but think about it. Would you rather move 50 pounds of physical books, or carry a Kindle in your purse? The answer should be pretty straightforward, and may motivate you to actually purge your book and music collections.

Lean On Friends And Family
Especially if you are younger and don’t necessarily have a massive acquisition of stuff that happens as you get older, the temptation of beer and pizza might be enough to lure some of your friends and family to help you move (though there are a few reasons why your friends may not ever help you move).

It will in the end probably save you money, though as you are amateurs moving rather than professionals you will have to add into the equation additional time to actually move things, as you and your friends probably won’t be able to do it as smoothly as a man and van company might be able to.

These are just a few ideas to help you save money when you move to your new place, whether its a new home you just bought, or a new flat in a city with roommates you don’t know…it’s a new adventure, but you don’t have to break the bank in doing so.

Jade Evans is a freelance writer who works frequently with an online shipping company that helps people get their things from here to there, with couriers and man and van services, among other things. She writes about everything from ways to be green to gift ideas, and loves the diversity of topics when she writes.

For that matter, there are many insurance policies that are silly to think of themselves, but are still offered by many insurance companies, and some are even gaining enormous success, albeit the fact that it’s almost impossible to claim the money.

A classic case is the alien abduction insurance policy, which has so far had no one paid for the claim, even though there were plenty of claims.  Despite the fact that it sounds weird to say the least, alien abduction policies have become very popular in California, and British insurance companies have made nearly 3 million dollars selling policies to gullible people.

In another case, three virgins from Scotland signed a policy with a local insurance company, that the company would pay 1.5 million pounds in the case either one of them becomes a subject of Immaculate Conception. Being so sure that they might get impregnated by a divine force, they’re probably still paying their premiums.

Another funny example is the government of Thailand, which offers tourists riot insurance, in the possible event of a riot rushing out in the country. That, however, even if not expected, is at least a plausible insurance policy, though it is funny how the government is trying to reassure their visitors that they’re in a safe country.

But those are all cases where claims haven’t been paid let’s take a look at some examples when wild claims were actually paid by the companies:

A couple in Malaysia were travelling through the country, and just when they decided to stay in a chalet for one night and left the windows open when they left. Upon their return, the find out those monkeys destroyed some of their belongings, and took some of them too. The insurance company paid the claims of the lost property, even though it was found days later in the adjacent jungle.

An old man was peacefully throwing up on his boat trip from one island to another, suffering from seasickness, when his prosthetic teeth fell into the ocean. After lots of debate and arguing with the insurance company, they finally agreed to cover the expenses of the old man’s teeth, after he made a pretty convincing case explaining that he couldn’t have removed his teeth while throwing up.

Upon their trip through the UK, a couple had a pair of coconuts stolen from them.  They were paid the 50 pounds they initially paid for their insurance to compensate for the two stolen coconuts, even though each one of them cost no more than 70 pence.

There is also the story of the lawyer, who knowingly insured his Cuban cigars against accidental fire and arson, only to offer them to one of his friends and claim compensation, but it is doubtable whether this story is true, or whether they actually paid him.

There are some pretty amazing stories considering insurance (interesting to know is that the Danish term is forsikring), which kind of makes you think – shouldn’t I claim even the smallest things, if there’s even the slight chance I’ll get compensated?

Author Byline:

Lyuben Georgiev

Could this be the clearest indication yet that banks have admitted defeat in the long running bank charges saga? In a surprise move, the taxpayer-owned RBS-Natwest group has announced it will be slashing charges related to overdrafts – breaking ranks with the rest of the banking industry.

With a decision on whether the Office of Fair Trading can regulate charges levied by banks on overdrafts and direct debits due to be delivered anytime, the move could be seen as the bank’s attempt to pre-empt any judgement and from 1st October, Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) and NatWest customers will be charged only £5 for having a cheque bounced or direct debit returned unpaid; this is down from the current charge of £38. Meanwhile, the charge for paying an item on an overdrawn account falls from its current £30 to £15.

“This is obviously very welcome news and about time,” said Marc Gander of the Consumer Action Group. “Hopefully this is a recognition of how unfair their pricing system has been.”

If the Office of Fair Trading is successful in its ongoing legal battle with eight High Street banks – including RBS-NatWest – then banks and building societies would have to pay out billions of pounds in bank charge repayments to settle the 1.2 million cases currently being held in the legal system.

However, the decision by RBS-Natwest could be a clear signal that the banks are preparing for the worst and the move is sure to be welcomed by customers of both banks.

What’s more, such a move could well see other banks follow suit and cut their own charges in order to retain their customer base.

Plans outlined by the party has revealed that one casualty of their proposed financial shakeup would be the Financial Services Authority (FSA) with their power being transferred to the Bank of England.

Under the Conservative’s proposals, the BoE would also have the power to regulate city pay structures, risk complexity and size of financial institutions; including requirements on those which put financial stability at risk to hold large amounts of capital to act as insurance to protect the taxpayer. Meanwhile, the Financial Services Authority would be amalgamated into a new consumer protection body.

Currently the UK financial system is controlled by a triumvirate involving the Bank of England, the FSA and the Treasury and it is this model which David Cameron, the Conservative party leader, believes is inadequate and failed to protect the country’s economy during the recession.

Launching the reform plans, Mr Cameron said: “The decisions that led to this crisis represent a policy failure of historic proportions. We now need deep, wide-ranging reform that matches both the magnitude of the crisis and the scale of the hardship inflicted on the British people.

“That reform must be based on a clear understanding of what went wrong in the first place and a clear determination to put it right.

“I’m afraid the government’s proposals that all we need are a few more tweaks and a little bureaucratic tinkering are totally inadequate and risk preventing a recovery,” he said.

Interesting times ahead in the city should the Tories sweep to power…

The case, which is currently undergoing discussion in the House of Lords could cost British banks billions of pounds should the Lords rule against them and Mr Cameron is believed to be considering a plan to introduce automatic payback of charges should the Tories win the general election. The Tory leader has already instructed the shadow Chancellor George Osborne to investigate the possibility of automatic compensation which would do away with the need for consumers having to raise a claim.

In an email sent in response to Martin Lewis of website MoneySavingExpert.com, Mr Cameron said:

“Once the legal issues have been resolved I agree with you that bank customers must be compensated quickly and fairly for any unfair charges that they have had to pay. So I’ve asked my Shadow Treasury Team to look at your suggestion that banks should pay money back automatically if the courts do rule that the charges are unfair.”

The full wording of Mr Cameron’s response can be found here.

The Tories’ promise could see the amount of compensation being paid back by banks far surpass the original figures claims Mr Lewis. Should automatic compensation occur, the banks could be forced to pay back as much as £10billion or even more; whereas if consumers were to continue to claim against their banks, the likely payout would be much less – perhaps £2-3billion.

The Lords’ verdict is expected sometime in Autumn.

Better known for their mobile phones, Finnish telecoms giant Nokia is branching out – into the world of financial services.

In March this year, Nokia sank $70million into mobile payment specialist Obopay and Nokia will now be working alongside the company to develop services which will enable consumers to send and receive money via mobile phone as well as pay merchants for goods and services and pay bills.

The service will be called Nokia Money and is believed to be targeting emerging markets where banking services may not be readily available.

In a news item on telecoms.com, Mary McDowell, Nokia’s chief development officer is quoted as saing: “We believe mobile financial services offer a market opportunity with long term growth potential … In many countries, mobile phone ownership significantly exceeds bank account usage, suggesting that many mobile phone users have very limited or no access to basic financial services. Global demand for access to financial services presents a strong opportunity to combine mobile devices with simple but powerful financial services.”

With mobile phones outnumbering bank accounts by almost 3-to-1 worldwide, there is a potential market for the provision and use of basic financial services via telecoms, and Nokia are also looking to create a network of approved Nokia Money agents where users of the service can deposit and withdraw cash from their accounts.

Nokia are expected to debut the service at next week’s Nokia World with deployment of the service scheduled to take place in 2010.

One of my many duties as a personalfinanosaurus is to write articles which I distribute on the internet. I was posting an article on Article Hub, when I came across this article:

The story of a single man

So it might have been a cunning ploy to wind up over-sensitive females (with male alter-ego dinosaur personalities) like myself, but still, there could be a reason why Jack Crow was single for such a long time.

With quotes such as:

a female rarely says directly what she wants. Instead, she will use reverse psychology by asking the male a series of questions until she gets the desired answer. If she does not get the desired answer she will take the huffs and give the male ‘the cold shoulder treatment’. She thinks this will alert the male that something is wrong and he will do what she wants.with out actually telling him

and

This all stems back to the fact that a female thinks with her emotions, not logic. This is why a male cannot understand a females rational. Males cannot read between the lines. They are not psychic or clairvoyant and they need everything spelled out to them in black and white.

Males often also complain that females are moody, have mood swings and show irrational or erratic behavior. This is especially apparent in times of stress, emergencies or significant events where body chemicals and emotions are highly stimulated.

Because a females behavior is affected by her emotions and her emotions are affected by her body chemistry and her body chemistry is in a state of flux from one month to the next, it can only be expected that a female would exhibit erratic behavior that is a mystery to a man whose body does not go through a constant monthly cycle of change. Re-read that last paragraph guys if it went over your head.

Mr Crow is obviously entirely stupid himself or he’s dating stupid women.

As a woman who isn’t single – I would argue that a man who really knows what he’s talking about when it comes to women – is out there doing it – not fantasing in their own mono-blog