Wonga and similar web operations are nothing more than legal loan sharks
Errol Damelin, chief executive of Wonga, is keen to portray his online, high-cost lending operation as a dynamic internet startup doing Britain a service – a far cry from the grubby payday lenders and pawnbrokers that now blight our high streets (Wonga boss seeks due credit, 13 May).

While you report that "Damelin insists Wonga is highly selective about who it lends to", I suspect his customers would beg to differ. One got in touch with me to explain how Wonga granted him a total of 19 separate loans over the course of nine months. Finally, he was lent over £800 to be paid back in less than a month – despite the fact that, he says, Wonga knew his monthly salary was only just over £1,000. He claims that when he defaulted and tried to organise a repayment plan, Wonga failed to respond to his emails or calls for nearly five weeks, while the amount he owed almost doubled in value. Damelin paints Wonga's technology and data as cutting-edge, but it failed to pick up that this client had simultaneously taken out loans with a dozen other payday lenders as he desperately sought to juggle...........Read more on this story HERE