It began with a loan for £4,000 and finished with a £130,000 debt and a man ending his life in despair. His wife was barely aware of the calamity by credit card that had befallen them. How did it happen? Jon Ronson tracks down the bankers, the list-brokers, the lifestyle analysts who have made us the most credit-addicted country in the worldIt is a wet February day in a very smoky room in a terraced cottage in Trowbridge, Wiltshire. A portable TV plays the news in the corner. Everything in here is quite old; no spending spree has taken place in this house. There are wedding and baby and school photos: six children, now all grown up. There’s a framed child’s painting in the toilet, a picture of Wendy Cullen. It reads “Supergran”. When I phoned Wendy a week ago, she said I was welcome to visit, “just as long as you don’t mind cigarette smoke. I’m smoking myself to death here.”The “Congratulations! You have been pre-approved for a loan” junk mail still pours through the Cullens’ letterbox. Wendy has just thrown another batch in the bin. “You know what the post is like,” she says. Continue reading…
Source : theguardian.com
Read more…Jon Ronson: Who killed Richard Cullen?
