Log Book Loans sound like they could be the answer to all your financial worries. All you need to do is complete a quick and simple Online application form, meet with a logbook loans lender representative and you can have a large sum of cash to get you out of a fix in 24 hours. Whether you have lost your job, suffered credit card bankruptcy, or just need a little extra cash to buy something you really want, the log book loan is sold to you as the perfect solution. There is a dark side to all of this though that is never discussed by the log book loans companies and which you need to know about before you even consider taking one of these loans out.
This first major problem with logbook loans is something which the lenders will inform you of on their very own websites. Its something that should immediately remove all thoughts of using this product from your head, but we tend to ignore the obvious when we are in desperation mode. It is of course the ridiculous interest rates that are applied to these loans.
Visit the site of any logbook loans lender and you will probably see a little table which will highlight the interest rates and the total amount you can expect to repay over the course. The website will fail to point out the importance of the figures or explain that you would be mad to take out such a loan unless you literally have no other choice. The lenders are to busy telling you about the fact that these loans are so easy to get that you can have your money tomorrow and the information about how much its going to cost you is hidden away at the bottom of the page.
The typical APR on one of these loans is a whopping 437% which means that if you take out a £1500 and repay over a period of 78 weeks you will be handing them back a total of nearly £4200. Do the maths and you’ll see this means your relatively small loan have just cost you £2700 or nearly three times what you originally borrowed. I don’t know about you but to me this doesn’t seem like too much of a deal and there’s no chance of someone mistaking this for a low cost secured loans product.
Unfortunately the high interest rates are only the start of the problems with Logbook Loans. The premise of this secured loan is that you put your car down as security for the cash but many of us fail to consider the implications of this before taking the plunge. Its simple really, fail to met the repayments and your car will be taken from you, auctioned and the proceeds will go to the lender. To make matters worse, the log book loans lenders won’t give you a loan for anything like the value of the car so if this happens to you, you’re really taking a big financial hit.
Also, these people are not like those down at your local bank. They won’t try and understand when you can’t make your payments because you’ve just lost your job or you’ve had some unexpected emergency financial situation. There will be no allowances made and you won’t be able to reduce your weekly repayments to suit. Neither will you be able to repayment holidays like you might get from your mortgage lender when you are in trouble. Miss just one payment and most lenders will send round the debt collectors to take your car from you forcibly.
There are other problems and horror stories associated with Logbook Loans but I will leave them for another time. The bottom line is, avoid this product if at all possible and if you have money troubles get a professional to make you up a financial plan that you can stick to.
