Borrowing - Loan Sharks

What is a loan shark?

How loan sharks work?

What to do if you've borrowed from an unlicensed money-lender

What is a loan shark?

A ‘loan shark’ is anyone who is lending money without having a licence from the Office of Fair Trading (OFT).

These unlicensed money-lenders are working illegally – they are ‘loan sharks’.

How loan sharks work

Loan sharks all tend to work in similar ways:

• They rarely give any paperwork to the people they've loaned money to -    making it very difficult to keep track of how much is owed
• If payments are missed, they often use threats and violence to get more money
• They charge extremely high rates of interest and also add other 'charges' to loans whenever they want – rates of 8,000% & 117,000% have been uncovered.
• They take away people's bank cards as 'security'

People involved in illegal money-lending tend to be part of other criminal activities, too. This can include gun and knife crime, counterfeiting and drug-dealing.

What to do if you've borrowed from an unlicensed money-lender

If you have borrowed money from someone who doesn't have a licence, you haven't broken the law - they have.

You can report them in confidence, by:

• Calling 0300 555 2222, or
• Texting loan shark and the details you want to pass on to 60003, or

• Sending an email to reportaloanshark@stoploansharks.gov.uk.

For more information about loan sharks visit direct.gov.uk/stoploansharks

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