Introduction

Abstract

There have of late been numerous attempts to make sense of the increasingly global upward trends in personal debt. This is perhaps unsurprising when we consider the ways in which the 2008 global financial crisis has thrown a critical spotlight on a range of seemingly interrelated personal debt events. Recently we have seen reports of the return of the formerly common trend of imprisoning poor and working-class US citizens who are not able to pay their debts (Roberts, 2014). Some 77% of US households are in serious debt, with one in seven people being pursued by a debt collector (Ross, 2013). The UK is currently witnessing steady growth in personal debt, which appears to show little sign of abating (Walker et al., 2014). Indeed, this increase is a growing problem in a number of countries (European Parliament Directorate General for Internal Policies, 2010). Research across 20 European nations suggests that consumer mortgage and non-mortgage loans totalled EUR 9.08 trillion at the end of 2011, up from EUR 8.03 trillion in 2007 (Benn, 2012). Commenting on the findings, the director of Finaccord said:

another thing we do is once the customer has got a loan we have to phone them once they’ve done six payments, between six and twelve months and do a loan review but really what the bank is trying to do is try and sell them another loan.

Bank worker

Since last November my husband’s started having anxiety attacks and he would sort of start retching and he’d have a nose bleed… he’s now been on anti-anxiety tablets for over a year and he’s still retching because of this (the communications from collectors).

Debt client

It’s very rarely that we will see clients that had just mismanaged their money, who over committed liberally beyond their means, it’s rare.

Charity debt advisor