Sheen says banks force people to use loan sharks

Hollywood actor Michael Sheen has said unaffordable credit options were leaving people to rely on loan sharks.

Speaking on the Channel 4 documentary Michael Sheen's Secret Million Pound Giveaway, Sheen said him writing off £1m-worth of people's debts was a "drop in the ocean".

More than eight million people across the UK were in debt and another 12 million lived on the edge in 2023, according to the Money and Pensions Service.

"Until the government makes the banks responsible for affordable credit, the problem will only get worse," Sheen said.

Sheen said, over the years, exploitative practises by companies such as Wonga and BrightHouse had been prevented but "people still need access to credit" and if affordable options were not supported then "people find themselves in even more extreme situations" and resorted to illegal money lenders who charge very high interest rates.

The actor said he had discovered "loan sharks were on the rise again" with people telling him they had been "taken up the mountain and threatened with violence".

A loan shark Sheen interviewed described himself as a "community hero because he was giving people options that weren't available to them otherwise".

Illegal money lenders or loan sharks aren't always obvious and can pose as a friend

They operate outside the law with high interest rate, no paperwork, and sometimes threats if the money is not paid

Loan sharks aren't registered or regulated by organisations like the Financial Conduct Authority

It's estimated 1.08 million people are in debt to a loan shark, according to Fair4All finance, but it's difficult to gauge because people can be too embarrassed to speak out

The sums borrowed ranged from £30 to £30,000

Sheen told BBC Radio Wales Breakfast on Monday: "There's a lot of myths out there, I've heard over the years people saying 'well these are feckless people who are making terrible choices and living extravagantly outside their means'.

"That is not the case. These people are incredibly hard-working, who are doing their absolute best."

Sheen said one of the women he interviewed was working both within the NHS and as a painter/decorator to "try to make ends meet" but was "still getting into trouble with debt".

"If you are living at the very edge of what you can deal with and then something unexpected happens, it can put you under the water, and then it becomes incredibly difficult to get back out again."

He said while it was a "huge deal" to have helped 900 people, what he wanted was "to create a systemic change" so that "thousands upon thousands of people" were helped.

Sheen said he was "shaped" by south Wales' communities which had a history of "helping each other".

He said watching people in his community "doing what they can with what they've got" inspired him.

"Its not going to be around forever, I'm not going to have the opportunity to earn the kind of money that I have been able to earn over the years and I really want to do something worthwhile with it while I've got it."

The show follows Sheen's journey starting a debt acquisition company with the aim of clearing £1m pounds worth of debt, using £100,000 of his own money.

After two years of trying to speak with UK banks and the UK government, Sheen said he had to bring in former Labour Prime Minister Gordon Brown to urge the UK government to pass legislation to help tackle unaffordable credit.

"We have got to look transparently at what can be excessively high rates of interest charged by certain organisations," said Brown.

In his debt campaign, Sheen was calling on the UK government to pass the Fair Banking Act - a bill which requires mainstream banking institutions to disclose their performance on financial exclusion.

This would create a system which showed the banks that were doing well, and the ones that needed to improve.

Sheen believes the legislation, which was already implemented in the US, would force banks in the UK to offer affordable credit to low income households.

"I think it could be game-changing," he said. "My worry is this will get snarled up in the political process and take forever and we haven't got forever."

Sheen said he contacted all five major UK banks, including Barclays, HSBC, Lloyds, Natwest, Nationwide but none agreed to be interviewed.

BBC Wales has also contacted these banks for comment.

The hour-long documentary will be aired on Channel 4 at 21:00 on 10 March - five months after the last remaining blast furnace was closed in Port Talbot.

The closure brought an end to the traditional method of steel making in south Wales and cut 2,800 jobs.

In the documentary, Sheen speaks to workers in a cafe opposite the steelworks who describe people crying at the tables as the closure loomed.

Choking on his words, Sheen said: "It couldn't be more real how much people are hurting.

"Maybe this programme will make a tiny bit of difference, maybe it won't, I can't walk away from it now."

Sheen cleared banking debt, overdrafts, credit cards and store cards, plus personal loans.

"Ironically, I am genuinely not sure I can afford to do this, but I'm still going to do it, because I've made a commitment and because I know this problem isn't going to go away."

When a person is unable to pay their debt, it gets put into bundles with other people's, which can then be bought by debt-buying companies, Sheen said.

"The debt-buying company then owns that debt and tries to get it back at its face value.

"But if they want to then sell that debt on to another debt-buying company, the price of the debt goes down.

"The people whose debt it is still owe the same amount but the debt-buying companies have been able to sell it on and on and on again with the value going down so companies can buy it cheaper," Sheen added.

Sheen said he set up a debt-buying company to buy people's debt in south Wales, but he "wasn't able to know who these people were individually".

"I knew the kind of debt they had and I knew the areas they were living in.

"I was then able to use £100k of my own money to buy a £1m worth of debt, which seemed like a good deal to me."