A payday loan company in the UK called Wonga, was recently attacked by the public for initiating loans to students. Recently, the U.K. Coalition’s reforms of higher education has imposed a 9000 pound increase in student educational cost for the year 2012. This has caused a lot of students and people in the public just to panic. Also, people feared dead companies just like Wonga.com, will continue to take advantage of students who are in debt and need educational assistance.
Before the page was taken down on Wonga, it stated:
“Student loans are usually far cheaper than your standard personal loan. But there can be a downside — you potentially end up borrowing more than you need, while a nasty debt accumulates for your graduation that could take years to repay. With a Wonga loan, the interest rate is much higher, but you only borrow it for a month and pay the loan back on a date that suits.”
Once this scheme was brought to light, many students and charities were calling for the page to immediately be taken down. People were obviously very upset that this was taking place.
The page was removed within 24 hours, and the company stated the reason that each page existed is from search engine optimization, and that the page itself is very old.
Martin Lewis who is part of the website moneysavingexpert.com, tweeted the link to over 82,000 followers, calling the company a moral disgrace.
Since then, Wonga has taken a page down from their site stating:
“We listen to our customers and public opinion, so it was clear the old article here gave rise to misunderstandings. [ .. ] We make decisions based on thousands of pieces of public data, not someone’s educational status. A student would need to have a regular income to be considered for a loan and students represent a miniscule proportion of our customers.”
If you ask us, Wonga.com possibly was in the wrong by offering payday loans to students who were in need of financial assistance. However, the government is not offering student loan alternatives, nor easy payback options as well. The sad fact of the matter is that 90% of students and up more and dad after going to college, then they were in debt before they went college.
What are your thoughts?