Today I came across the article published on the telegraph.co.uk website about the banks being accused of ripping off customers by charging extortionate interest rates of up to 21% on personal loans.
You can read the entire article here: Rip-off interest rates on personal loans.

My favorite quote from this article is the money-saving expert Martin Lewis’s:

“If you walk into your bank for a loan without checking the market for the best deal you may as well have the words ‘rip me off’ tattooed across your forehead.”

The truth is that last year I had to take a loan to buy a new car – if I knew what’s just about to happen (with the Credit Crunch and all prices going down) I would most probably wait a little bit longer.

I’ve been with NatWest for several years now. My wife and I have personal accounts with them and our business account is also with them.
I blindly believed that because of this and because we are good customers (regular payments etc.) we can get a good interest rate on our new loan.

At the time they were advertising their loans at the interest rate of around 7% APR – which sounded extremely attractive.

Without thinking twice I’ve decided to apply and my loan request has been approved, but for some reason interest rate has jumped up to 15.9 % APR.

I needed the new car so I had to accept it, but one decision I’ve made after this, was that I will never go to NatWest asking for a loan again.

These days we have many options, there are price comparison websites – try them first and do not blindly believe that your bank is going to care about your interest – because they won’t. They are only interested in making profit and by becoming their client – you’re becoming their target.