Lloyds Banking Group, part funded to the tune of 43% (£17 billion) by the tax payer, blames its hastily takeover of HBOS for the bad debts which has resulted in losses of £4 billion for the first six months of this year. They say that £13 billion of loans and investments had turned bad, most of them from Halifax Bank of Scotland.

Can’t argue with that, my debt support team tells me we have more clients with unmanageable debts with Lloyds Banking Group than any other lender.

A good day for catching 'Loan Sharks'

Two loan sharks were in court today, one got five years and the other suspended, where is the continuity?

It is a sad part of life that people need to borrow money for emergencies and in one of the cases it was £300 for a wedding dress that eventually cost £88,000.

I have watched the news bulletins and read various articles on the net and not seen any help offered to those that are caught up with a loan shark or need to know how to check one out, so I will do it.

For the definition of a loan shark, explanation of your rights, how to search a website to see if a lender is licensed or for a hotline telephone number set up to cover the whole UK then click on the debtwizard loan shark guide