Debt vs Physics
Is it called an Electron card because it incurs charges, yet carries no weight?
(Jack Rarebit ...We like chillies, Wed 29 Nov 2006, 19:09, Reply)

Bloody Hell
I've read about half of the first page of this QOTW and I'm depressed!

I work in a bank. Part of my job is to chase people who aren't paying. It's a shitty part of the job, and one that brings out the anger in me.

If you can't pay - Fine. Talk to me. Tell me you can't pay and the reason for it. If it's genuine, I can probably give you advice on how to save money.

If you're out of work and getting no income - Fine. Talk to me. Chances are you have insurance on your account and that will pay your loan repayments while you are out of work.

If you've gone to a Debt Management Company - Fine. I don't agree with a company charging you £50 per month to fuck up your credit rating for the next seven years, but it's your choice. Talk to me. I'll tell you how to get a company to do the same thing for you, free of charge.

DON'T lie to me. DON'T think that by ignoring my phone calls I'll go away. DON'T think I don't know every excuse in the book.

For anyone badly in debt and struggling, heed this advice - Talk to your creditors if they can't help you, or even worse, if they WON'T help you, at least you've tried.

And for anyone thinking of going to a Debt Management Company, ask yourself this - If you can't afford to pay the bills you already have, how the Hell can you justify paying a company who are basically going to NOT pay your bills?! Go to CCCS - Consumer Credit Counselling Service. They will do the same thing free of charge.

Sorry for the rant.
( SeasonTicketless is too often the statue, and rarely the pigeon., Thu 23 Nov 2006, 21:19, Reply)

When drunk a few years ago
I ordered 500 quids worth of toilet paper. Yep, toilet paper. On a CapitalOne card. I had fun playing with it when it arrived, building forts and suchlike, but I only crap as much as the next bloke. It wasn't long before I realised what a complete fool I had been. Most of it was skipped a few weeks later.

A mate of mine swears he didn't put the idea into my head when I was wankered, but I don't believe him.

My parents (bless them), have recently given me £1k to help out with my financial problems. Maybe on his deathbed I'll tell my father where £500 of that actually went.
(The Secret 7000 ...join us. www.secret7000.co.uk, Thu 23 Nov 2006, 23:48, Reply)

Bitch
Basically I got married. It failed. I now owe her a load of money that I earnt. I should really take my money and run, cos I know she can't do that...

Cheers, Paul x
(Foz, Thu 23 Nov 2006, 21:02, Reply)

For you, Christopsy
My bank manager was a fox: 25, blonde and with a figure that could could warp steel at ten paces. In her tight pencil skirt and crisp white blouse, she was an office slut with a BA in Finance and a mouth that knew all the tricks.

I needed a loan. She ushered me into her office and said she needed to find out about my assets. They were growing just by being in her presence. "I'll need to assess your long term availability," she said while unzipping my fly and taking my throbbing weapon into a cool hand.

"I don't have a problem with high interest," I replied, as she applied a busy tongue to my engorged tip and massaged my gross accumulation. Before I knew it, she had stripped and was impaling herself on my twitching ardour.

"Show me your deposit," she yelled as I came furiously into the enclasping clutch of her orgasm-clenched special interest account.

And that, b3tans, is how I fucked the bank manager.
(frankspencer, Mon 27 Nov 2006, 12:15, Reply)

For all you people out there in debt
Do what I did.

Set up an 0906 number that charges 5 quid for every minute. Buy a motorcycle helmet and wrap a cardboard box in brown paper. Walk into business's along Euston road (or anywhere else to be honest) saying that you have a package for Mr J. Sneddon. When the kindly receptionist tells you they don't have a Mr J. Sneddon, look perplexed, examine the box and then ask if it would be OK to ring base and see if you can get this sorted out.
Ring your 0906 number, get into a long and protracted arguement with your 'boss'. Apologise, rinse and repeat.

Debt, what fucking debt.
(Stainer Has been treating objects like women since, Tue 28 Nov 2006, 2:27, Reply)

Evil old bosses - a slightly more happy debt story :D
A few years ago, I worked for a certain private computer retailer which after 4 years of working there decided that, as I was hitting 21, they didn't need me there full-time anymore. My hours were reduced, and I was skint. While I was on this new part-time rota, I got halfway through the week and was accused of mass theft and promptly fired.

Two weeks later, I got a job in a pub down the road from them, and was earning an easy 50% on top of what I was getting from the comp shop, the tight cunts. I also started working part-time in another rival computer company, which my old boss didn't appreciate (to the point where he heard about my interview, and called them to warn me about my "criminal" background). I still got the job though :)

Approximately year later, I get a phonecall from one of the floor managers from this computer place who still kept in touch with me. He informs me that he's not entirely happy with what had happened that day. Apparently the Police had been called in to deal with an apparent £13,000's worth of theft I commited? Not bad, considering that I haven't set foot in the place since I got fired. What makes things worse was that the owners had asked him to say they'd seen me take stuff, when obviously none of them had. They all weren't about to testify to this, and that pissed the owners off chronically. The Police laffed this accusation off, and didn't even bother letting me know about it.

3 years after this; I'm out on the piss, quite happily minding my own business getting drunk, and I bump into an old regular customer from the store. He's happy to see me, and comes bearing news; one of the owners had been caught swindling £52,000 from his own company - exactly 4 times the amount I was accused of - and ousted from the partnership. The bastard had happily used me as a scapegoat blaming me for the debt, but himself got caught in the end. I got happy-drunk that night :D

A few months after that, the company went bankrupt and went completely under. I was gutted I wasn't there on the closing day; I would have stood there in the doorway to the shop pissing on thier shelves.

Soz for length ; this is one debt that truely does make me smile.
( Jeccius Steam Borderlands 2 junkie, Wed 29 Nov 2006, 18:29, Reply)

First Post on the Bugle
Much like Togaboy, I too have known the near-sexual pleasure of inviting my erstwhile financial overlords to whistle for it, from the comfort and safety of the other side of the world. And what made it all the sweeter was that my debtors were none other than… …drum roll… …The Student Loans Company. Can I get a woop-woop?

For those who haven’t had the pleasure, crippling debt to these darkly malignant tumours on the ringpiece of Britain is the fiscal burden of choice for anyone who has the brass-balled audacity to attempt to educate themselves without a trust fund/hereditary life-peerage/uncle on the civil list.

Anyhoo, after several weeks on the phone attempting to defer repayment due to distinct lack of clay urinary receptacle, coupled with a grim determination to spunk my sub-atomic wage packet on weak lager and nutritionally questionable take-aways in the here & now, as opposed to weak lager and nutritionally questionable take-aways I’d shovelled down my kite in 1997, the bitter Glasweigan phone monkey informed me in a blisteringly smug tone that “I’m afraid we don’t do that sir”

“You clearly do. It says so on the back of this threatening letter”.

Cranking the smug up to 11, he replied “It’s actually a little more complicated than that sir”. I swear to Vishnu he actually purred as he said this. Cue three years of threats, abusive letters, arbitrary charges, and legally murky attempts to coerce my family into payment (luckily my mum is absolutely nails, and tolerates precisely none of this malarkey).

Eventually I move to the capital, accidentally score semi-lucrative employment with Britain’s 117th most respected cable TV company, and decide to get these parasites off my back for good. Their initial proposal – monthly repayments equal to those of, say, Mozambique – was not met with approval, but eventually a deal was struck.

Then I emigrated. And so to the point.

A single payment by direct debit, of a fixed amount, on the same day of each month, is admittedly a difficult concept for a loan company to grasp, but throw in a new debit day, a change of address and wire transfers to my UK account in a Aussie dollars, and the pilot of their collective brain ship suffered a stroke at the wheel. Letters were sent requesting the entire amount in full within 7 days.

During the subsequent call to an equally smug phone gimp (do they take smuggery classes?), something happened that tipped me over the edge. I’d almost reached the end of my rope trying to explain my situation, and asked to speak to a supervisor, and the phone gimp… …laughed. He actually chuckled at me. Something deep within me buckled to breaking point, and I cut loose.

“OK. You’re in Glasgow, in January, facing the wrong end of an 8-hour call centre shift with only a bollock-freezing lunch hour to break the tedium. I’m currently sitting on my balcony on Sydney’s northern beaches, sipping a glass of shiraz so massive it could drown a small family cat. My back yard has a fucking palm tree in it. So option 1) I’m going to make regular repayments, when I decide to, in the manner in which I choose, and you are going to help me. Option 2) You never hear from me again”.

It worked a treat, and what’s more, oh God it felt good.

Apologies for longevity of ongoing genitalia joke.
(Monkey Tennis isn't Spartacus, Thu 30 Nov 2006, 13:50, Reply)

I do mortgages
which in itself ain't very exciting, but I do meet a lot of people financial problems who really do put life into perspective, last week alone:

One guy, earns £36k (which is alright), car loan- 25k, unsecured loans £12k, credit cards, not joking, £80k. He wonders why I say to him "Please don't buy a house".

Lady, 29 years old, £65k on plastic. Just made redundant from £31k a year job.

21 year old, bungled a biz startup, going to be bankrupt in time for Xmas.

Best one thus far; guy, 22, girl 19, two loans, one is from Ford motor company (for the Focus RS) and the second "it's from Bupa" says the girl. "Oh, everything alright?" I ask, "yeah", says the guy, "six grand buys a fantastic pair of tits, don't you think?"
(Waisted Fred I say who Sir, you Sir?, Thu 23 Nov 2006, 20:19, Reply)

I owe.

I owe.

it's off to work I go.
(apeloverage committed the vile act of onanism on, Tue 28 Nov 2006, 13:52, Reply)

Going to Uni
i'm now in my final year of uni, after having started a course some years back, hating it and changing over and starting again. Basically, I've been at uni for five years, in which time I've racked up five years worth of debt. Although I don't regret doing it, this debt is going to be roughly £15,000 when I go into full time employment.

I knew what I was getting into when I applied, so that argument doesn't work here. However, what I really really fucking hate is the fact that a few years before I started, I would have been given a grant, and would miss out on paying £15,000 back to the student loans company.

This is why I get really fucking pissed off when people come out with that "Tax Dodger" shit. I'd rather pay 5 years worth of fucking tax than have a 15K fucking debt to my name, on top of the maxed out overdrafts, you utter utter wankers. We aren't all content to fuck up our GCSE's and work menial fucking jobs for the rest of our lives, thanks.

I came to university to better myself, and to better my chances of coming out of it all with a job I actually enjoy and find rewarding, and that's what's slowly taking shape. So yeah, keep calling me a Tax Dodger. When I'm earning fucking £50,000 a year I won't have to dodge taxes will I? And where will you be? Still stuck in your dead end job moaning about the "fookin stoodents" and how they "don't know they're born"....

Seriously, to those people, go and fuck yourselves. You're lucky I'm well educated or I might have resorted to just beating you to fucking death by now...
( PMGT -Bacon., Thu 23 Nov 2006, 22:25, Reply)

Although we live in a large and varied world, there can't be too many people like this out there...
Bloke called ian who lived in my block at uni. His entire degree was bankrolled by mum and dad so he never learnt the finer points of thrift. As soon as he was given any money he'd blow it all within a couple of days and then borrow money from the rest of us until the next payout.

He never paid anyone back and he borrowed from EVERYONE. There came a point when no one would lend him anything. So one month the usual has occurred and he is broke. I have little sympathy until I find him with his finger in my tub of margarine because he can't afford any food.

'Lend us some money Sadleir, please, I'm starving.'

'I'll lend you twenty quid on one condition. The condition is that you will promise not to spend a penny of it on either booze or fags or take aways or gambling or weed or public transport when you can walk and food from Waitrose or M & S. You must promise to spend this money on NECESSITIES ONLY.'

'I promise.'

The next day I find him waiting for a bus. He's holding something extremely large that's wrapped up.

'Ian, what's that?'

'It's a headboard for a bed. It was reduced from £80 to £15! Amazing, yeah?'

I mean, a headboard?
(sadler, Thu 30 Nov 2006, 13:20, Reply)

I'm a student. If I wasn't poor, it would defy the stereotype.
Not that I tell everybody about my banking details, but once I went £300 into my overdraft. I've paid it back since, but every month or so, my bank take a measly amount out of my account (like, 27p or something).

I got a letter saying that as I was now well in the black, they'd stop randomly charging me miniscule amount. Two months later, they randomly took 87p out.

Not wanting to sound overly picky, I went in the bank next time I had some money to put in. I asked about this random 87p going out. They checked it, and realised their mistake.

A few days later, I got a cheque for 87p.

But that's not all. A few days after that, I got a phone call. It turns out that they 87p was the actual last charge for my me going in the red. Oh, alright then. As I hadn't cashed the 87p cheque, I decided not to bother, and the whole thing would sort itself out.

The following day, I got a cheque for minus 87p. Obviously, the smart clerks at the bank realised that a cheque worth 87p would be cancelled out with a cheque worth minus that amount.

Clever.
(__, Fri 24 Nov 2006, 5:47, Reply)

My Mum
Picture the scene: It's the mid 1980's, a Sheffield Council estate, two young boys and their mum are hiding under a table in the front room, and there's two burly men banging on the door.

Me: "Why are we hiding, Mum?"
Mum (whispering): "Ssssh"
Me: "Who's that at the door, Mum?"
Mum: "Ssssh, keep it quiet"
Me: "Why aren't you opening the door?"
Mum: "Because they're Jehovah's Witnesses, and if I open the door they won't go away".

Yes, my mum told me for a good few years that big troglodytes almost busting through the door weren't actually baliffs trying to repossess the TV and the Stereo. Nope, they were Jehovah's Witnesses trying to preach the Good News of the Lord Himself.

Either I was a bit dim as a kid for believing that, or my mum is a very clever woman.

Either way, those Saturday afternoon hide-and-seek sessions were always entertaining.

Oh and yes, I do have an innate fear of Jehovah's Witnesses as a result. Even the doddering old ladies.
(scentless_apprentice takes two bottles into the shower!, Thu 23 Nov 2006, 21:21, Reply)

I'm a programmer
and just for fun I coded up an autobot which would spam QOTW with banal stories about student debts. Sadly it ran out of control and I couldn't shut it down. Now I've got a bill for £1,000,000 from my ISP for excess bandwidth charges.
(><(((">, Fri 24 Nov 2006, 6:13, Reply)

Shazbat!
In the 2nd year at school I paid the class slapper (well, one of the 2 class slappers) 50p to show me her tits.
She took the money and legged it, cow.
What a fuck up
(LunarJim, Fri 24 Nov 2006, 7:45, Reply)

My fuckup?
I'm still living it. Uni cost me dear, being in London and all; about £25k into the red in total. So I figure the only logical thing to do is flee the country, which I did.

The letters keep coming; the court-cases keep passing by, and here I sit in sunny Spain getting cained next to my private pool, mid November on a chilly 25°c day - debt free!

Calling HSBC cunts while making “bum-bum! willy-willy!” noises at them until they hung-up the phone is one of the most satisfying things I've done in quite some time. They didn’t call much more after that.

¡Viva España!
( slippery doctore, Thu 23 Nov 2006, 21:51, Reply)

not that i blame her
but my girlfriend is pregnant. i've only just turned 20 and she was 18 when "it happened" so um, yeah... over the next 20 or so years, that will be my money fuck up.. not buying a fucking condom
(Memorex don't you have anything better to do?, Thu 23 Nov 2006, 20:33, Reply)

Don't live in a camper van if you can't drive
Let me take you back to being a recent graduate in the 1980s. 2 grand overdrawn, bank account frozen and having spent the housing benefit on uproarious living (beer and chips) I am in shtuck with landlord, but have a job and first pay packet should unlock life's riches once again. Mate suggests I stay in his VW camper for a while, which he generously parks outside my rented property. I hide in it with the lovely floral curtains closed as landlord ransacks empty house screaming for his money. I continue to hide every other day for about a week until he twigs that the snoring coming from the camper each evening may be in someway connected to me and starts hammering on the windscreen. Only at this point do I realise that if I had wanted to move said van, taking a course of driving lessons in the 6 weeks leading up to my cunning scheme might have been a wise move. Taking the hand brake off and rolling forwards four feet before inertia brings me to a halt isn't exactly the getaway required. Cue the first of three periods of my life in which I have slept in the office. And explained away facial bruising with casual leisure-pursuit related lying.
(dunlintemminck after 40 years it's come to this?, Tue 28 Nov 2006, 22:29, Reply)

Getting married of course
I got married when I was in the US Army in Alaska, (the cold must have got to my brain). She called me up and said she was pregnant and "what are you going to do about it"

Cue me being the stand up guy and marrying her against all odds, against friends advice. I was enlisted and wasn't bringing home big dough so I proceeded to get an absolute wreck of a car that cost me more in storage yard fees than I paid for it cause it was broken down. On the way to get insurance right as I was pulling into the insurance lady's office the aforementioned car,(which had no acceleration and soft brakes) slid on ice magically into someone else's car leaving the insurance office. Cue much frustration and getting denied insurance for some reason by the people in the office who saw the accident.

Warning sign of the week: When the girl you are about to marry takes you to meet her state paid for mental health counselor. No seriously, it did not ring any warning bells.

So Right, I get married by a justice of the Peace and have a $20 cake at the wedding in the apartment. Thats when the fun begins. Since my Seargent's in the Army didn't approve of me getting married no one told me I had to fill out large stacks of paperwork and mind it through a byzantine system. Cue me 2 months later trying to support me and the wifey on MRE's snagged from work.

Then I get the cheapest apartment I can afford which is at the other end of town from the army base and have to ride a mountain bike to and from work. No problem cept it's 10k from work, each way. So I'd get up early, ride 10k to work then run 3k on top of other exercises week days.

Back pay arrives and I proceed to piddle away $1500 US on food, back rent and a N64, all while still riding a mountain bike back and forth to work. (summer mind you)

Then once I'm moved onto post housing I get a 3 bedroom unit with a washer and dryer in the basement. Best place I've ever lived so far. But I have no furniture to furnish it. Even had to make do with an air mattress for a month or so.

Now wifey gets a brilliant idea of getting herself on my checking account. She calls up the bank and gets checks sent to us with both of our names. (warning bells should have gone off but really they didn't)

Cue me being extremely overdrafted for almost a month straight until I find out that she has been writing checks against what the Dial in system says the balance is. No really. She would know that there was $500 in the account and proceed to write $800 in checks in like a day or two. After she wrote each check she would dial in and see how much money was in the account, Honest. The concept of a checking account was completely lost on her.

Cue me being roughly 1300 overdrafted with another 1600 in overdraft fees from banks and stores. I hastily confiscate the checking account from wife, get large personal loan and barely avoid getting an Article 15.

I find out 6 weeks after we are married that she has a daughter. No really, she calls me up at work( frequent occurence) and tells me she had to sign away her daughter that day. Turns out she had a young daughter that had her arm and leg broken by an ex boyfriend a long time ago and they were just finalizing the paperwork now.

I would regularly come home on payday, she'd draw me a bath and I would get out of the bath lighter in the wallet. Then that day or the next she'd want to go clubbing because a friend "loaned" her some money.

About the pregnancy to begin with? She has a "miscarriage" and I still decided to marry her.

I got out of the army, moved home and before a year was up I left and we had an amicable divorce. As amicable as it can be with someone who has multiple personalities and is pathological. Dad's the nicest guy in the world and really, I couldn't come over for christmas dinner if I brought her with. Seriously.


Cut to many years later, haven't remarried or even had a steady girlfriend and I've gone to school. I have a bachelors, working on my Masters of business administration, no house, new car ($14k debt), school loans($63k), and a killer job with a fortune 100 company.

Slightly before this though, I lived for 5 years without running water while I was going to school because the pikey mobile home in the woods was all that I could afford.

Apologies for length - Probably should but I can give any woman the best 2 minutes of her life. :)
(armednuclearterrorist, Tue 28 Nov 2006, 10:10, Reply)

OK, you lot, you asked for it
OK, where was I?

Oh yes, the lovely Ursula. She left Nice with her school chums and I remained for a while…[imagine hitting the fast-forward button for a bit]…met crazy Parisian/Algerian girl, just friends, went to Paris with her, then London with me briefly, then back to France to pick grapes, hitch-hiking, met people, did stuff, grapes finished, rang Ursula as she lived in Minfeld nr. Karlsruhe in the German grape producing area of Pfalz. She said she could arrange grape-picking work for me near her, I could stay at her house. Verdict: result! I got on a train in southern France with a couple of litres of red wine in my pack and somehow managed to arrive at Karlsruhe minus the red wine, in a train packed with young French army conscripts. [back to normal speed]

At the station, there was my lover looking really good. I found out her Dad owned a car dealership so she had the pick of the cars as run-abouts. We put my rucksack in the boot of a Renault 25 and she floored it home, which was a three storey detached residence next to the dealership.

Now, looking back on it, her folks were really good, I had been living in a tent for most of the previous month, was smelly, un-shaven and dirty. I was also foreign. I was also older than their clean-living, sweet-smelling, angelic daughter. So, I met Mutti and Varti and also her big brother (uh-oh). Ursula had warned me about him; he had ‘issues’, his fiancée had just dumped him, he was drinking too much and he’d attempted suicide.

Soooo, we went to her room where she very kindly asked if I wanted a shower, and boy, you know those few occasions when you feel completely transformed by a wash? Well, this was one of those times. Being German and with a big house, their walk in shower was the dog’s danglies, I emerged, wrapped in a towel and went back to her room. The change had the desired effect as she pounced on me and we rolled on the bed. It was late at night by this time, and everyone was in bed, she was due to sleep in the spare room, but took the time to make sure I was comfortable…which included taking her clothes off and impaling herself on me the ‘wrong way round’, while I lay on my back with the perfect view of possibly the nicest bottom east the Rhine as it rose and fell, rose and fell…

Sorry about that…ahem! So, she left me not quite as clean as I had been ten minutes before, but a hell of lot sleepier and about two fluid ounces lighter.

Now, you lot know that I always try to tell the truth, or at least as much of it as I can remember, so it’s confession time now. I didn’t love Ursula. In fact, hands up who remembers ‘Girl-of-my-dreams’? Yes, I was still in love with her, but that had been the summer before, and it was months since I had had any contact with her. I knew Ursula was in love with me, and I was using her like the horrid man I was. Question was, was this bad of me? She loved me, I was here with her, giving her pleasure, I hadn’t said I loved her – well, not since that moment on the beach, and it doesn’t count if you say it in a foreign language, right? I was enjoying myself greatly but truthfully, it would have been better for her if I’d stayed away…anyway, too late for that now, go to sleep Che, it’ll all work out OK in the morning.

Next day, lovely German breakfast, rolls, ham, salami, cheese, coffee, then Ursula took me to work. School had started back so she dropped me off on her way in. She, or her Dad, had fixed me up with some local wine-maker as a grape picker, so I was dropped off in a near-by village, called…Scheidt, yes, I can truly say I was in Scheidt every morning before I even started work.

The work was fine; very different from Languedoc Roussillon though, much taller vines, grown over wires, more widely spaced, tractors etc. It was also a hell of a lot colder, greener and wetter than the rosy Southern hillside terraces. There was one guy there that spoke very good English - he’d spent a year or so in London when he was younger - and he told me what to do. Most of the workers were local rural German women and they seemed to think I was something of an oddity, but we got on fine. At lunchtime, there was good grub at long tressle tables and at the end of the day, I was dropped off back in Scheidt, and there was my little angel in her Renault 19.

To cut a novel down to a novella, each evening Ursula and I would go out as soon as I was showered and changed. We usually went into Karlsruhe to a café/bar called the Krokodil or somesuch. Here we would drink beer and she would tell me how unhappy she was, how she couldn’t bear it at home any more, the atmosphere was horrible, her brother only came out of his room to find more booze or shout at people, a couple of times he’d hit her. Her parents were running out of patience and snapping all the time, they were only polite when I was around; there were lots of tears.

Throughout all of this I was useless. Like the bloke I am, I didn’t know what to say, what to do or how to act. Basically, all I wanted to do was work, get some money, have sex if at all possible and move on. Unfortunately for me, the sex was out now, the atmosphere or something someone had said made it too dangerous.

We had some good times, the first weekend we went to a neuer wein and chestnuts party. A couple of hours walking in the woods collecting chestnuts, then bottles of the new wine, still fizzy and roasted chestnuts a-plenty. We also went to a gig where one of Ursula’s friends called Timo was playing in a surprisingly good but weird band: a couple of black Americans from a nearby air force base and four white german kids – very funky, very tight. I met some of Ursula’s friends, one of whom sticks in my mind, her name was Trixie and she was a peach! She clearly fancied the arse off me and the feeling was mutual – I’m ashamed to say I even copped a lovely feel of her arse outside the club when Ursula went to fetch the car…

…perhaps that is why I was so frisky when we got home. When Ursula came in to say good night, I was starkers (always sleep in the nude) and she consented to a quick cuddle, though I knew nothing else was on the cards. Suddenly, the door opened and we heard Mutti’s voice say something before it slammed shut again. Shit! She’d seen my naked bod on top of her - admittedly clothed – daughter.

More tears, Ursula went out, sounds of shouting, doors banging…let me tell you, shouting in German is more scary than other shouting, well it is if you’re naked in a German house, young and, let’s not forget, Jewish.

Later on, Ursula helped me pack and at first light she took me to the station (I can’t remember which car it was) and helped me buy a ticket. I was going back to Nice where I knew a lovely 15 year old girl with friendly parents who’d put me up for a bit.

We did the old waiting for a train routine: checked the platform, checked it was on time, went for a coffee, had a cigarette or two, didn’t really talk much, held hands. Men aren’t really strong silent types, they just can’t think of anything useful to say most of the time. Train came in, and then something strange happened, I started crying. Real tears, streaming down my face. I tried to hide them from Ursula, well, I made it look as if I was trying to hide them, but made damn sure she noticed [told you I told the truth], then clung to her for one last kiss, our tears mingling, I hauled my rucksack onto my back and climbed aboard. By the time I found a seat, the train was moving, and the tears continued to stream down my face as we pulled out of the station, I could hardly make out the figure of Ursula running beside my window on the platform.
(Che Grimsdale Best before:, Fri 24 Nov 2006, 15:32, Reply)

top tips
I've lived in near poverty for more than a decade and have evolved these tips to avoid debt:

1) Never carry cash. Then you can't spend it.
2) Make all your own food - it's cheaper and more healthy.
3) Don't turn the heating on when you can wear a jumper.
4) Use cold water and lots of Fairy for washing up (hot water is only for showers).
5) Have no TV - read second-hand books instead.
6) Never go out socialising - stay at home.
7) Never go on holiday.
8) Don't have a credit card.
9) Never borrow money for anything (a mortgage is the only time to go into debt, and only then when you earn enough)
10) Don't buy what you want - buy what you need.

By following these rules, I have made myself utterly miserable - but I am not in debt (apart from the student loans, which have been deferred for 11 successive years on account of my poverty).
(frankspencer, Fri 24 Nov 2006, 11:57, Reply)

paragliding
Let me try and cheer this up a bit. How's this for loserdom:
When I was in Brighton I used to watch, awe struck, as paragliders would sail overhead from the Downs, right over town and land gently on the beach!
I unexpectedly got hold of some money, and decided that was the hobby for me. No - it would be a way of life. There was a great deal on at the local school; pay £2k up front, have free lessons until you were club standard, then you could choose £2k worth of equipment - a wing, helmet etc once you were qualified.
I paid up on my switch card, and on the first day I could I got down to Devils Dyke for my first lesson.
First up was putting on the helmet; I did that pretty well but then, being England, it quickly clouded over and so we had to call it a day.
The next week a letter fell through my door; the company had gone into liquidation. I would be entitled to money depending on everyone else being payed off first, and only after selling whatever stock was found on the premises. The letter went on to say that as the only stock was a telephone and a ball of twine, it was unlikely I'd see any money.
So to sum up, I paid £2,000 to try on a paragliding helmet.
Still, I see that having declared themselves bankrupt, Sky Systems is back in action again! Well done Michel, good luck with your next record-breaking adventure!!
( browser still relating boring anecdotes into a void on, Fri 24 Nov 2006, 10:42, Reply)

Serious Serious Debt
I made friends with a really cool Korean bloke through both work and friends-of-friends. We got on like a house on fire. Well, not like a concrete house, cos they don't burn very well. But I digress.

He wasn't a really close mate, but a friend enough to catch up with every few weeks or so. Then he decides to get married. To a Japanese girl. Who he wants to bring to Australia. (As this is where this story is being writ).

After one or two fateful lagers, he pops the question. To me! Would I please sponsor his future wife to come to Australia in holy matrimony. Of course I said yes, in the wisdom of never having met her, not knowing him uber-well, not knowing what it entailed, and not being really very aware of the infinite un-love in which Koreans and Japanese hold each other. And I was pissed.

--- skip paperwork and 3 months ---

The crux of the above skippage was that for 2 years after she got here I was liable for any costs the Aus govt may incur for her going on welfare, being a murderer, forgetting a library book etc. I'd never met the girl, but was assured she was lovely, and she looked lovely in the photos. And I had to sign legally binding stuff that said I knew her like a sister, even though they were living half a country away.

The potential cost to me? Oh, $200,000+ (invent your own figure, really) which is a shitload of quid/lira/drachmas.

It's the best debt I've ever been in - it's now 4 years on and they had their first kid 5 weeks ago. Beautiful, and I'm responsible.

I still haven't met her.

Maybe a sparkly sparkle in what appears to be an urky gloom of QOTW dread...
(baldie, Fri 24 Nov 2006, 9:40, Reply)

I WIN!!! I ALWAYS WIN!
I've had two loans, one at the bank, (HSBC)one at Sainsburys (tossers). anyway, i did what all good people do and that is instaed of consolidating all my debts i only paid off some of them, i spunked the rest on cool shit.

So i start getting nasty letters and all that shit. then about 3 months ago i start paying another company to sort it out for me, jobs a gooden. legally no one is allowed to hassle me. stupidly HSBC ignore this and decide to hassle me anyway, i was sitting in the pub at lunch time about a month ago, HSBC call me, i identify myself and then the guy starts to hassle me. So i said "I don;t want to talk about this, its lunch time, i'm in the pub piss off." the person on the other end says "if you can't afford to pay us you can;t really afford to be in the pub!" I had to hang up, otherwise i would have been rude.

I work as a Quality Consultant in a call centr so i know the precedure. So i ask the bank for the call recording, the line managers name, all the notes on my acct for 6 months, to see of the little prick has written anything nasty. Bank ignores me and sends me some half arsed apology and pamphlet on Customer Services. So i complain again, crowbar the word, umbudsman, unlawful charges and court into the letter and yesterday this preening sycophant called me up and gave me, my call on CD, my notes and £200 spending money. think i might buy a XBox 360. its always worth complaining!!!

Width? Length? Why don't i tell you after the beep.

Beeeeeep. Bob Kelso, 10 inches!
(Hendrix73, Tue 28 Nov 2006, 17:02, Reply)

Josh - ya dads foond ya skoootah.
Fuck yeah. How I loathe those Picture the Loan adverts. Somehow, they manage to be even worse than Phil "Nothing to pay for 5 months? Happy days!" Tufnell and Vorderman's consolidated loan whoring.

Cue: jaunty music off the Take Hart gallery. Cue shots of lovely house interior ("Yes! We do have a mortgage!"). Cue happy phone conversation with Picture - "They'd better not cancel the football!". Oh, and on more trivial matters: "We'd like to borrow £25,000." Cue delighted nodding from partner. See how comfortable and blase they are with their significant debt! To the point that on one of the adverts, some silly tart is actually capturing the conversation between smug multi-chinned hubby and Picture on camcorder for posterity.

"Shall we put on a video, precious?"

"Oh yes, let's watch the one where you took the £25,000 loan out to keep the bailiffs from the door."

"Ah! Happy memories." (snuggle, snuggle)

I suspect the only blue-sky fantasies Picture the Loan really have are ones where every household in Britain is up to their neck in fiscal shit, so that they can step in and "consolidate" aforementioned shit. Picture it. It still stinks.
( weebear1974 discovering the joy of cat rape since, Mon 27 Nov 2006, 17:40, Reply)

Agreeing
with the people before me.

We're not looking for smug twats to say how they've never had a moments debt thanks to the bank of mom & dad. I've been bloody fortunate to receive limited assistance from my parents.

Debt doesn't happen because you "overspend" on frills. It's not buying a new tv that does it, it's losing your job and realising that housing assistance never quite covers your rent, and that you have to choose between eating & washing your clothes.

My debt was self inflicted, but I'm living with it. I got into debt because of a choice I made to pursue a career. my objection is to those who I am in debt to being arrogant, condascending & ruthless in their endeavour to strip me of any chance of living a life where debt doesn't keep me awake at night.

If the banks, credit companies and loan arrangers were being regulated as they should be, then the stigma and fear associated with debt wouldn't drive people to suicide. When a bank or company can ring you 5 times a day to harass a underpaid, overworked person into paying "just a little bit more" than they can afford, then the system is not working.

My advice to those in debt

1 - Statement of Affairs - work out your incoming & outgoing
2 - Write to your creditors, detailing the issue and offering to make token payments until things improve. They won't always accept this, but you've made the effort and this will help in the future. (at least that's what I did)
3 - Do not pay anyone to manage your debt. The Consumer Credit Counselling Service do it for free, and know what they're doing.
4 - Realise that what the creditors tell you isn't always the truth. (Shock) They'll tell you they'll send the bailiffs around, that they'll take you to court and you'll be kicked out of your house. This is bullshit. They can't send the bailiffs around, and they probably won't take you to court as invariably the money you're going to end up paying them is LESS than what you offered initially. PLUS the debt often gets reduced and it costs them money to pursue the case.

Most of all, try not to panic. I've been in your situation and I'm surviving. Creditors rule by fear and they enjoy making your afraid.
(pup, Mon 27 Nov 2006, 12:19, Reply)

i always masturbate
to the Debt Matters adverts circling round on freeview channels nowadays.

Only a problem when stood outside Dixons on the high street.
( Mister B is eating an icanhazcheezburger with lmaonaise, Sun 26 Nov 2006, 18:47, Reply)

YOU GREEDY THICK BASTARDS...
When will people realise that the whole point of the credit industry, is to lend money to those that cannot affort to repay. Thus increasing their debt and the profitability of the credit company. Yes it's cynical, but the most basic of capitalist principles by far. Nobody is forced to sign on the dotted line, it is just pure impatient greed. Some try to justify their predicament by claiming that debts are part and parcel of normal modern life, they are the deluded fools. Anything and everything is affordable with credit, especially to those who believe materialistic posessions will fulfil their sad existance. The reality is that borrowing finance is no different to gambling, the result will always be the same. On balance the future outcome favours the bookmaker in exactly the same way the financial institution. There is no shortage of punters trying to recover their losses, at bigger stakes as the downward spiral takes a grip. Go on, treat yourself to a consolidated loan, you know it makes sense?
(minky, Sat 25 Nov 2006, 10:52, Reply)