ConnedswiftyisNOTevil writes, "I have recently become obsessed with the BBC Three show 'The Real Hustle' - personally, I think of it as a 'How To' show for aspiring con artists."
Have you carried out a successful con? Perhaps you hustled a few quid off a stranger, or defrauded a multi-national company. Or have you been taken for the wide-eyed, naive rube that you are?
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chthonic, Thu 18 Oct 2007, 13:02)
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HSBC credit cardMy mother in law is disabled, she lives on a disabled living allowance and has done for years.
Through the magic of home shopping, boredom and a lack of touch with the real world she managed to get about £8k of debt on an HSBC credit card and was/is paying a huge amount in interest each month INCLUDING an payment protection insurance policy.
So, finding her disability allowance won't cover it anymore she contacts them about the payment protection policy. They reply, no problem simply send us proof of your job loss or change in earnings.
"Err, what job loss? I never had a job when you gave me the card."
So basically for 4 years she's been paying a payment protection policy that she can never claim from as it only protects you against loss of earnings, when she had no earnings to begin with.
Now that is a proper con!
I take debt very seriously and work fecking hard to stay out of debt so I'm rather pissed off that she has about £12k of debt and not a single asset since it's all spent on rubbish from home shopping etc most of which breaks or gets binned. I suggested she get declared bankrupt, learn from her lesson and not do it again, but she was "too shy" to go to the citizens advice etc and her flipping family all support the bury your head in the sand approach!
So now she's paying the debts off over about 20 years or so after we wrote to HSBC and she made an agreement to pay off by installments. I know thats the right action in the long run but it's obvious to me she's not learnt from the mistake and I can see the whole thing being repeated in a couple of years if interest rates change and she can't cope again.
(, Fri 19 Oct 2007, 12:42, 2 replies)
of courseYou claimed back all the payment protection instalments that were sold incorrectly in the first place?
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scoshi pretending to diet since, Fri 19 Oct 2007, 12:57,
closed)
I've told her to......I even wrote a letter for her to sign and send.
However she has "entered into an agreement" with HSBC where basically they've reduced/stopped interest and pretty much commuted it into a loan to payback.
Yeah I know, I couldn't believe it either.
Just goes to show HSBC will try to screw anyone, even when they're in the wrong!
(, Fri 19 Oct 2007, 15:21, closed)
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