I am surprised at how so many people are naïve about what the cost of credit is and when they want something or want to upgrade their lifestyle, they are prepared to pay almost any price for the object of their affection.  They simply look at the interest rate, which in many cases is quite high, but they do not take into account, apart from the interest rate, that there is the initiation fee for the loan, a monthly administration fee, often credit life insurance (also at high rates) and various expenses.  When you add it all together, on top of the interest rate, in many cases people are paying huge amounts of money for instant access to cash and it is extremely frustrating that people adopt such an attitude.  

I feel the same way when clients, who have just been injured in an accident, write to us after 2 or 3 weeks, saying that they are now having terrible financial problems, which presumably cannot have anything to do with the accident, and want us to give them supporting letters so that they can borrow money from a company against their Road Accident Fund case.  Of course, banks are not interested in lending money against Road Accident Fund claims, so they are dealing with companies which charge even higher rates and even higher costs and it is just not something I can support.  People in that position always say that they have no option, they have no alternative, etc, but when they are actually borrowing money for lifestyle purposes and clearly had debts before their accident, it is very hard for me as an attorney to try and see how they link the two cases together.  I also find a tendency in the exact same people that when their case is finalised, and this has happened to an attorney colleague of mine, they then claim that the interest rate that they were charged was too high and if the attorney had any hand in assisting them with it, claim that the attorney should not have referred them to the company or should not have let them do the deal or other such nonsense.  

In some respects it is about a culture of never taking responsibility and just doing whatever suits one now – borrow money now and then at a later stage blame somebody for your borrowing the money or blame the bank for not telling you about all the extra expenses, etc that you did not bother to research and that, even if you had, you would probably have proceeded with the loan.  If they live for today and worry about the price later, and then hope later you can make a story to get out of it and I think that would also be part of the problems that we have seen with African Bank – huge numbers of people who have taken on loans that they would never ever be able to afford to pay and of course now it is very convenient to say that there was reckless lending by the bank.  There may well have been, but people need to take some responsibility for their lives.  It is similar to the smoking situation – where people absolutely are adamant about their right to smoke, and how smokers, even though they take time off for smoke breaks, are actually better workers than non-smokers and whatever else they always claim but 30 years later when they develop cancer, then they are running around to find a lawyer to help them and it may well be of some use if you started smoking in a time when people did not know of the dangers, but that is certainly not true of the last 15 years or so.  It is part of a nanny society, where you can do what you want, steal from your employer as one example and then approach the CCMA and say that you don’t think you were given a proper hearing, or that it is the first time you have stolen and people are all for it – except that most people don’t think that ultimately they are paying for it in one way or another in their taxes that they pay.  You must in this type of society be protected from your own reckless behaviour at all times and always be given a chance to explain why you did something bad instead of just paying the consequences.  If you are protecting people from reckless spending, from smoking and from everything else they do, you must just understand that society, and you via your taxes, are paying for it.