Instant Loans -Just A Small Solution To Enormous Debt Problems

One individual out of a group sends an SMS message while sitting in a bar for instant loans, takes the money out of a cash machine, and buys another round of drinks before closing time.

This is the well-known image of how people in Finland get flooded with debt in 2008. However this image is not correct, revealed by Elvi Oikarinen, who works in Kemi as a debt counselor.

She says that these barflies are "a very small part" of the entire debt problem in Finland. "I have seen only one boy who behaved like that, when his life was going in the wrong track in other ways."

Instant loans are often just the tip of the iceberg that removes debt trouble for a short period only.

"Most of people have applied for instant loans, but few of have them as their only debt. Generally they are a last resort for tackling with previous payments", says debt counsellor Sari Linna from Hameenlinna.

Those who turn to instant loans are often accused of hedonism and gluttony, but Linna sees things differently. "Consumption loans are not generally used for luxuries. They used to pay for fairly ordinary living."

Linna indicate that gambling problems and instant loans go hand in hand.

In their work, debt counsellors hear distressing stories of people in a spiral of debt who swear never to seek out an SMS loan ever again, but are simply not able to resist the temptation.

"People begin to play with their telephones. It's severe to obtain advertisements every time. When someone seek out instant loans, they start deriving offers by text message for new ones, and always for a bit bigger sums of money", Oikarinen explains.

Lawyer Pekka Lindberg, chairman of Velkaneuvonta, a bonding of debt counsellors, says that instant loans are, as it were, a visible name that has been given to the entire phenomenon of indebtedness.

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