Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!
Oldest shop in Wood Green closes to make way for a loan company
The owner of Brigg Sports-Intersport in the High Road handed the keys to specialist loans company Oakham Ltd on June 11.
Owner Jonathan Brigg, 58, whose grandfather founded the business in 1913, took the tough decision to close the branch in the face of online competition.
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Tags for Forum Posts: shopping, wood green
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by sphamilton on
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Just what the area needs: a loan shop where the typical apr is 76.9%.
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Permalink Reply by John McMullan on
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There was a very good discussion from a bloke who knows his stuff on "loans 'till payday APR" here.
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Oh, sphamilton, let's not be too moderate for our own good, eh?
I looked up Oakam Loans (correct spelling) on www.oakam.com and they offer the following exciting range of interest rates:
Fast Payday Loan: 444.3% Annual Percentage Rate
Emergency Loan: 303.3% APR
Bonus Loan: a thoroughly reasonable 104.6% APR
For reasons too boring to explain, the Equivalent Annual Rate in these cases may well be much higher.
Also the "Emergency Loan" rate is only as low as 303.3% if you qualify for the "bonus reward" for making all your payments on time. Also there's a "fee" for arranging the service - if you borrow £400 for six months the fee is £35.
Oakam promises a "friendly, multi-lingual" service - when you're borrowing. Whether it is as friendly if you can't make the repayments is less clear. Money can be in your bank account today, yippee!
Britain has some of weakest anti-usury laws in the developed world. There are no statutory limits on interest rates, for example.
So you can go into one of five or six bookies lined up in a row on a Tottenham street, lose your household budget money, then borrow it all back until payday at a vast rate of interest.
Parasites on the poor. Ugh.
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So when's Haringey's CREDIT UNION due to open? No shortage of suitable sites, I'm sure, on WG and Tottenham High Roads and on Harringay Green Lanes.
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Also do not think that our fearless regulators will be taking any action on this issue any time soon. On 15th June, it was reported that:
“The Office of Fair Trading has backed off from tighter regulation of pawnbrokers, payday loans and home credit markets which charge very high rates of interest on short-term loans.
The watchdog said the £7.5 billion-a-year market served low-income people who could not get loans from other parts of the financial services industry. It said the Government must legislate if it thinks there are still problems.”
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/money/article-23845249-oft-eases-off-...
Sigh.
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Permalink Reply by Michael Anderson on
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Typing "Quick Loan" into Google brought up a company called Quick Quid (this is just a random example). Their annual loan rate on a £50 loan was an astonishing 2222.46%! This is not an error and I didn't put the decimal point in the wrong place.
This type of company always sets up in poorer areas (not many on Kensington High Street) because they know their clientèle will be people whose credit rating means they can't access loans through other, more mainstream means. They are also the same type of people who will be more likely to default on the loan and be liable for this obscene rate of interest. In any half decent country this kind of practice would be classed as extortion.
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Sad to hear of this as both I and my sons found the staff very helpful when we used to buy cricket bats and other gear from them starting in the mid-1990s. I didn't know they had been around so long.
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Permalink Reply by Isidoros on
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There is a wider issue affecting all our facilities in modest income areas.
Betting shops, massage parlours and loan sharks, not only focus in these areas, (exploiting the desperation of the poor, peddling dreams to them and suckking out of them whatever little money they may have), but also they are pricing out other "normal" traders and service providers, who cannot compete with them and survice.
These "parasitical" businesses, can afford to pay more to landlords, driving rent levels beyond what an average retailer or service provider in a low income area could possibly afford to pay.
As a Tottenham councillor, I am painfully aware of the frustrating inability of local authorities under current legislation to do anything beyond playing at the margins of this vital issue, which is likely to become even more crucial for our area as the recession bites and unemployment rises.
We need to campaign tirelesly for legislation that enables local communities and their local authorities to control the proliferation of such "establishments" in low income areas. Lets all start by writing t our MPs demanding such legislation and by signing the various petitions that are around.
For those interested, there will be a session about betting shops at the next meeting of our Tottenham & Seven Sisters Assembly (Tottenham Green Laisure Centre, 15th of July, from 6.30pm) to learn about the legislation and to discuss tactics.
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Permalink Reply by Lol T on
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Yup,
A guide to modern shopping:
1. Find a product on the high street.
2. Find and buy it cheaper on-line.
3. Wonder where all the neighbourhood shops have gone.
Sad but true I'm afraid...
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Permalink Reply by Alan Stanton on
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But it's not quite that simple, is it?
The changing pattern - local stores contracting while malls and megastores expand - long predates internet shopping. And both huge retailers and small specialist stores are happy to develop their own complementary online businesses. For the latter, thriving online sales may be the only way to stay in business in the medium and longer term.
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Permalink Reply by PeterPiper on
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Well, what a surprise!
It's next door to a bookies (Jennings)
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Permalink Reply by Clive Carter on
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Regrettably, these kind of operations are legal. It makes no financial sense to borrow from them. All they can do is make a bad situation worse.
If the head of Barclaycard said he would discourage his daughters from obtaining credit on that card (circa 18%?), what sense is it to pay APR in the 2,000% to 3,000% range?
There is another aspect to this: demand. If borrowers understood what utter folly it was to contract to pay interest at the rate these companies charge, legally, they might never go to them.
Whether these shops should be allowed to exist (i.e. the supply side) is an open question. But the fact there is demand there for them, that is proof of a severe want of consumer education.
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