Lost at Sea by Jon Ronson

Author:Jon Ronson
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: For the Benefit of Mr. Kite
Published: 2011-12-31T16:00:00+00:00

The letter goes on to offer Richard Cullen, who has now been dead for three months, a £15,000 loan. (“10.9 percent APR variable. Loans are secured on residential property.”)

“Just imagine,” the letter concludes, “this could give you a much needed light at the end of that dark tunnel.”

In 2004, MBNA’s profits were one and a half times that of McDonald’s.

♦

The Cullens are beginning to piece together the minutiae of the mess Richard got himself into. They’ve found credit-card statements stuffed in drawers and behind wardrobes all over the house. Wendy says I can come down and look at them.

While I’m sitting there, I hear a key in the front door. It is Christopher.

“Did you hear the radio?” he says. “Barclays has just announced its highest-ever profits. Four point five billion pounds. Seven hundred and sixty-one million pounds from Barclaycard.”

Wendy lights another cigarette.

“Did your father have a Barclaycard?” I ask.

“Three,” says Christopher.

“You’d think that would have triggered something off in Barclays’ computers,” says Wendy.

“And on top of that,” says Christopher, “Barclays gave him a six-thousand-pound loan.”

“Oh my God!” says Wendy. “I didn’t know that.”

“Which they upped to thirteen thousand pounds,” says Christopher. “That’s twenty thousand pounds in repayments over sixty months. That’s just that one loan.”

“How did they let him do that?” says Wendy. “He must have been crazy!” She pauses. “Barclays shouldn’t have done that,” she says.

Christopher drives me to his house to look at the statements. There are half a dozen files thick with them. There’s a Jiffy bag, too, filled with sliced-up credit cards, cut in half when Richard Cullen finally admitted the problem to his wife. MBNA, Goldfish, Tesco, Amex, Frizzell, etc., all sliced up.

A typical page of a Richard Cullen credit-card statement reads like this:

Alliance and Leicester

Interest charged: £71.07

Late fee: £25

Overlimit fee: £25

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