Over recent years, borrowing from traditional lenders, banks and credit card companies, has been harder and hard to do. As a result we have seen a rise in the number of people turning to payday loans and illegal loan sharks.

A loan shark is someone who will give a person a loan, charging them a high level of interest and short repayment terms. Loan sharks are unlicensed and operate illegally, as well as being unregulated from any governing financial body.

Loan sharks commonly prey on the most vulnerable people who have nowhere else to turn. When people struggle to pay them back, loan sharks often turn to threatening tactics to get payments from the debtor.

With many finding it more and more difficult to borrow in these tough economic times, increasingly people are turning to loan sharks. Figures released in 2009 by research agency, Debt on our Doorsteps, showed an estimated seven million people have borrowed from loan sharks.

If you have borrowed from an illegal loan shark and do not know what to do next… firstly you need to report them to the police or the Illegal Money Lending Team, details can be found on Direct Gov website by. Once you have done this you many want to look at your finances and seek free and impartial advice from Payplan to help you arrange your finances.

Have you had experience with a loan shark? Would you like to share your story and help others? This is the place to do it.

This is a huge problem, as is the confusion between these people and the legal loan sharks that MP Stella Creasy bangs on about.

The problem is that many people (not necessarily those that get pay day loans many of those are on average incomes, have lots of sources of credit and should know better) who are in poverty or close to it only have access to high cost credit (and only use it when the absolutely have to).

The best high cost credit providers dont make stupid profits, because they have to absorb the cost of failing clients. But the cost of legit, legal credit for the poorest in society is still, in my view, too darn high.

The only solution, I think, is to force mainstream banks to lend socially. 2% of the profits wouldnt be missed.