rudo1ph

I don't mean to be rude here, and I hope your wife is fully recovered, but surely if whatever was wrong with your wife was serious then she would have jumped to the top of the NHS queue? If you chose to go into debt by having private treatment then that's quite another matter.

As to the second phrase........what kind of person are you that does not speak to his neigbours or anyone else about his plans........weird

Well it's your concience, your life. I couldn't do it, I think it's a shitty attitude to have.

gedge

So Mikey, what's it going to be?

Pay the 10K to clear your debts and conscience, allowing you to live freely ableit pennyless?
-OR-
Keep the money and run, laugh in the face of those financial institutions, keep ducking and diving?

We want to know.

bondipom

Banks make excessive profits from credit cards and can take the loss very easily. They work out a provision for such fraud each year. The OP could get away with it but there is always the chance of being caught.

jad n rich

Have not read the entire thread so excuse me if someones already pointed this out. What happens if you return to the UK?, Sure, everyone says they wont go back to crappy old UK but the fact is many DO go back. How would defaulted debts affect you then?

My advice, nobody knows if they will end up going back, the real life out here is often very different from what people anticipate. Burning bridges might look a bit stupid a few years down the track.

jjonboy

Putting all the morality issues aside i would serious seek the help and advice of CItizens Advice Bureau or a similar agency. THere help is free and will help reduce your payments SIGNIFICANTLY until such time as you are back on your feet.....

The advice is free and then you can make an informed decision about what you want to do

gedge

For what it's worth, I wouldn't and didn't do it.
My situation was different, but the idea was the same.

I owed my company 5K. It was a payment made to me to cover relocation expenses (relocation forced on us by my company).
If I left within 12 months of receiving payment I had to pay it back 2 months after leaving. I knew this and budgeted for it, saving the money in a high interest account rather than spend it.
When I resigned to come here, the company immediately stopped my pay (4 days before xmas!). This was to recover part of the debt.
As the manager put it, "We have no guarantee that you will pay it back once you've gone to Oz."
My response was "Not everyone going to Oz is a criminal!"
My thoughts at this point were to take the money and run.
Would it be worth their time to pursue 5K? How could they? I deserve it now as they've fckd me off. They're a big company and I need the money more than them. Hey I earnt it with blood sweat and tears!

Any way two months later I posted them a cheque. It ain't worth the hassle.

gedge

I've been doing some work for a company here in Sydney that involves sending debt details to a couple of debt recovery agencies.

I'll ask them if they ever get requests from the UK shall I?

(The company I'm working for is international with some systems shared globally, so it wouldn't be too much of a stretch to the imagination for debtors detailed to be passed on).

Don

Excessive profits? High but not 'racketeeringly' high (there are regular banking investigations by the govt), there's plenty of opportunity for free competition by other lenders.

This wouldn't justify theft IMO, the provisions presumably are there not just for thieves stealing from the banks when they 'go away' eg to Australia but also because of more 'genuine' provision needs, eg bankruptcies, deaths with no recovery of sum borrowed, credit card fraud by other methods.

I was always taught that theft is wrong.

young_lad

Consumer Credit Counselling Service: www.cccs.co.uk 0800 138 1111
National Debtline: www.nationaldebtline.co.uk 0808 808 4000
Federation of Independent Advice Centres: www.fiac.org.uk 020 7407 4070
Citizens Advice: www.citizensadvice.org.uk or visit your local CAB centre.

According to this site some of these organisations may negotiate with your lenders on your behalf.

bondipom

Racketeering indicates a level of illegality by the banks. Excessive profits indicates an oligopoly or a market with distorted competition due to other factors. Misleading advertising is barclaycards current problem. There is a lack of self discipline by consumers borrowing on credit cards but providers advertise to target this weakness and the whole credit scoring industry seems setup to exacerbate the situation. By basing credit on the ability to pay current credit rather than the income and current loan size the industry is creating the problem. It may not be the intention of the individual companies but as an industry it is unsurpising to find consumers overextensing themselves.

Visa and Mastercard also collude and both charge similiar interchange fees. The Australian RBA has banned this practise. It will interesting to see how the rest of the world will follow.

Another indicator of excessive profits is that credit card interest rates do not seem to follow bank interest rates.

DarrenD

I know this will sound like a dumb question, but if you dont repay it, assumedly you will get a CCJ in your absence, then a record that you didnt pay the CCJ.

Not a problem immediately, but when you apply for Aus, you need police clearance certs (PCC). If this was on your PCC i assume DIMIA would take a very dim view of it. After 2 yrs in Aus, would you need another PCC to get citizenship ? or would that latest information never find its way across ?

Not so much an issue from a civil point, but from an immigration pov. Also, does the visa contain a clause that you would have to tell them about changes to circumstance such as a change to your UK PCC?

Anyone with wisdom (or experience!) on this appreciated

bondipom

CCJs will not hit your UK police check. Fraud convictions will. No pccs are needed to get citizenship.

Herman

The basic routine is that the banks will try to collect the debt as much as they can within the confines of their fairly limited processes. They then write the debt off (charge off) and sell to a collection agency. I am currently involved in a project for one of these collection agencies and let me tell you folks, its rapidly growing business. These guys buy whole portfolios of debt from the likes of Barclaycard for something like 5p for every £1 of debt, so for a £10m block of debt they pay £500k. They then have experts at tracking people down and they are pretty relentless. They will keep on going at you until they can collect something like 10p in the pound from you. Thats all they want, just 10% of the debt's face value will give them a handsome profit across the whole blok of debt they buy. There are numerous large US companies who are very good at finding people, very relentless and very determined to get into the UK market. Be warned.

That's some of the process stuff. I completely agree with Don though - what you are proposing is stealing. Yes its relatively easy to do and you can tell yourself that the credit card companies are immoral blah blah blah but that doesn't change the fact that you will be stealing money that belongs to the shareholders of that bank, which is probably most of us on this forum who have company pension funds. Also as others have pointed out, if it goes tits up in Oz and you have to return, your theft and credit blackmark will result in a punitive mortgage rates for years to come. I would never dream of doing what you are proposing, but lots do it - there are a lot of criminals out there.

Grayling

I was wondering about this point.
If you make a false declaration on Character or Medical checks and these later come to light then your visa can be withdrawn. Surely this would also apply to a criminal act?
If so then the person concerned could find themselves without a visa and facing legal action back in the UK.

Penniless , homeless, and stateless?

G

finsbury

Mike

Just one question. Why are you moving to Australia? Is it because you and your family really want to do it or are you running away from your problems in the UK? Or a mix of both perhaps?

I nearly moved to Canada 6-7 years back with my former partner but we postponed it to pay off our debts (much more than 10K). We eventually split up but what we realised was that the dream of moving to Canada was a hope that we would be able to get over our difficulties. I'm not saying that your situation is exactly the same but it felt very similar. I guess what I'm saying is that I hope you're moving for the right reasons otherwise you'll end up transferring your problems to the other side of the world where you may not have the support of friends and family that you have in the UK. Anyway, you're an adult so I'm sure you're more than capable of making up your own mind.

One final point - as someone who cancelled some dreams to fulfil their financial responsibilities, I hope you don't get away with it.