'I became suicidal over debt'

A Northern Ireland man has told of how he has been driven to despair after amassing £120,000 in debts from credit cards and personal loans.
The father-of-two began to feel suicidal as his debts spiralled out of control.

Liam's family are oblivious to the extent of the problem which arose after he was made redundant three times, resulting in lower paid jobs.

I was always struggling to live, I just got by, from hand to mouth. Then the first credit card application arrived. I thought it would be handy if I was short of money. So, whenever I needed cash I withdrew it from the hole in the wall.

My initial credit limit was £600 and it didn't take too long to reach that and then the limit was increased. I was using it to live from day to day, to try to subsidise my income.

There were non-stop bills and they all had to be paid, so I used the card. It got to the stage where the card was at its limit. Other card applications arrived daily, again I took another one, with no problem getting it. Then, the same thing again.

Within the first few years I owed between £3,000 and £5,000. I now owe £120,000.

Whenever I reached my limit on the credit cards, I took out a personal loan to clear the cards. But it quickly became obvious I couldn't afford the payments on the personal loan, so I started using the credit cards to withdraw money to pay off the loan.

So the loan had to be paid, but the credit card was going back up towards the credit limit. I could never get ahead of myself. It was an endless circle.

I don't gamble, don't smoke, don't drink, I don't go on holidays. All I did was withdraw from the credit cards to live and had to take out other loans to pay these off.

I ended up with about 13 credit cards and three personal loans at the same time.

I couldn't see a way out of it. I thought about committing suicide. I actually realised that at my age I hadn't got long to retirement. I thought there was no chance of me ever paying the loan.

I sat down for the first time and counted what I actually owed, not what I was paying off. I couldn't believe it. I thought: 'How am I ever going to pay this back? Never will that be paid, I will not work long enough.'

Death seemed to be the easy option, the debt, I hoped would have died with me.

The hardest thing is knowing that you're holding that back from the person you love.

I have had threatening phone calls to the house. Just by luck I am there when the phone rings. I'm on the phone speaking to these people, giving me verbal abuse of the highest order. I have to make it look as if it's a different conversation as far as my wife's concerned.

It's all nasty conversations. There's no-one ever asks: 'How can we help you?' Initially I offered them reduced payments. They would not accept one penny less. There were no offers of help.

Every single person that phoned me regarding an unsecured loan, threatened the same thing - to come to my house and take my belongings. That is the last thing I need. I need help, not threats. They wouldn't listen to what I had to say.

I am just an ordinary man with a family. I've never spent one penny of that money on luxuries, never used it for anything only living and then paying off other loans. If it can happen to me, there have to be other people in similar situations.

The major financial institutions let people down. They suck you in with these constant barrages of offers of credit, keep moving your credit limit until you're squeezed so tight you cannot pay it, then they throw you to the wolves. They don't want to know.

All they want is their money and if you cannot pay what they want, they sell your debt to a debt collection company.

I'll never be on top of it. I don't see a future. I don't expect sympathy for getting into this state. Circumstances dictated how I got here, but I feel totally drained, I feel terrible about the whole thing.

I blame myself for being financially naive when I was younger. All I want to do is go to bed and sleep, forget about everything and hope I don't wake up.

Liam told his story on BBC Radio Ulster's Stephen Nolan show.