The issue with Pay day loans are that they are by their nature unfair, and they're run by morally dubious people who have no issue with profiting from this unfairness.<p>Therefore they target people who don't understand what the impact will be with slick marketing. These naive, often uneducated people are fooled into thinking they're only borrowing £10 to pay for nappies, but they're really borrowing the potential for financial catastrophe.<p>In a truly civilised society, pay day loans would still exist, but they'd be run as a special financial instrument of government, and be means tested with sliding scale interest rates and all profits would be put into educating these people about finance awareness.<p>This way the idiot who doesn't have the money to buy the next CoD on the day of release, but must have it, would pay a high interest rate, but the mother who needs nappies would maybe get the loan as specific vouchers at a much much lower interest rate.
PayPal does or used to do the same thing in the UK. Three years ago, I received threatening letters from a non-existent lawyer company when my PayPal balance went ~£50 below 0.
Wonga is backed by Index Ventures, who otherwise have a very fine reputation (they are major backers of Dropbox, for example)<p>Companies like Wonga should really be legislated out of existence. I am disappointed that a reputable VC like Index Ventures would want to be associated with a company like Wonga.
My opinion on Wonga and other similar companies is that the usury laws which were repealed in the mid 19th century should be reinstated. In those times convicted usurers danced on the end of a noose, but I'm not suggesting that be used as a punishment these days. Mere imprisonment is probably a good enough deterrent.