Now rogue payday loan firm targets the jobless
A PAYDAY loan company exposed by The Mail on Sunday last week for targeting hard-up families and locking them into a spiral of debt is also preying on unemployed people.
The Cheque Centre, one of Britain’s biggest payday lenders, sends staff to stand outside job centres and tells them to hand out leaflets offering loans with sky-high interest rates.
The latest allegations were made by a Cheque Centre whistleblower who contacted this newspaper after our investigation last week. The female employee, who did not want to be named, said: ‘The logic is that if people are at a job centre, they are in receipt of benefit and therefore able to pay back the loan.
‘Our area manager told us that if we wanted to get our figures up, we needed to stand outside the local job centre and hand out leaflets with the promise of a loan of up to £1,000.
‘The way he said it was, ‘‘If you want to up your game then you need to do it. Job centres are what bring the results in.’’ I didn’t want to lose my job so I went and did it.’ A Cheque Centre spokesman said: ‘We take any allegations very seriously. Following on from last week’s article, we launched an investigation which will now be expanded.’
Last night, welfare reform Minister Lord Freud said the payday lender’s behaviour was ‘bordering on the immoral’.