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My son was talking to a housemate’s brother who proudly announced that he had been given a credit card with £1000 credit which he had spent as he thought they had given it to him!!!! My son said you do know you have to pay it back each month to which he replied no I do not have to pay it back each month they give it to me each month. My son eventually got it thought to him that he had totally misunderstood what a credit card was and that he had to pay it all back. He was shocked.

Either this was total mis-selling to a youngster or he must be stupid. A bit of both I think.
When will these banks learn!

What an awful story and quite frightening for parents with children heading for adulthood. Keep an eye on them you Mums and Dads. I thought my stepdaughter was sensible when she was at university and she ended up with a £15,000 loan no-one knew about, with absolutely nothing to show for it at all.

What a terrible story. How stupid of the bank and how naive of the lad. I was once told that it takes approx 10yr to pay back credit cards if making the minimum payment, not sure how true it is but it is quite scary to think that the young adults are being bombarded with offers of credit without realising the consequences.

This is exactly why people are ending up in debt. This is unfair, and i think that kids should be taught from a young age the effects of debt. This should be taught in schools from a young age.

Depending on which card you have and what interest rate you are paying, the timescales can be truly frightening.

I had some statistics a while ago whereby a Barclaycard with £3000 on, if paid at minimum every month, would take 48 and a half years to pay and the total amont paid back would be nearer £12000. Mbna was slightly better at 34 years.
In the interests of balance, those cards would obviously been the highest charging ones, but a salutory lesson nonetheless.

My Oldest is 14 in the summer and she would qualify for one of the pre pay debit cards, so I am going to get her one for her birthday.

The idea is that she will get rid of the excitement of "PLASTIC" before she can get credit and hopefully learn that when the funds are gone they are gone.

Perhaps she might learn to budget.

Just an idea

OMG, size5 that is truly horrendous!!!! It seems that everyone who has credit is in danger of losing control with the awful consequences that we have had to deal with seeing as it takes SO long to pay c/cards back.
They should start given kids education into budgeting, I wish I had had it when I was younger.....

You are right Chris, it is awful.

I encourage everyone to read their credit card statements properly and thoroughly. A relative of mine has one of the cards I mentioned before and last months statement asked her for £72 as a minimum payment, it is only when you look closely that you see "estimated interest next month £67" that it truly starts to hit home how dangerous they can be.

I got into that situation as well - I only realised just how bad things were when my Virgin (MBNA) card switched from 0% interest to 27.9% pa! I've just found a copy of my last statement and I had a balance of £8547.53, a minimum payment of £108.19, and they had added £103.19 interest! The estimated interest for the next statement was £114.69!

Funnily enough I was really good with money when I was younger! I started a paperround at 12 and really apreciated the value of money. I survived uni without debt and learned to live on 12p baked beans! A pint would last the whole night too! It wasn't till I started working that I got into debt. My first card had a £500 limit which over the years increased to £10k.
Nowadays banks etc are throwing credit at youngsters and students are facing a lifetime of debt with student loans. It's scary how these mount up!