More and more debt-laden Britons are turning to debt charities to help them through personal financial crises, one organisation claimed yesterday.

The Money Advice Trust, an organisation that provides free debt counselling, said that telephone calls from the public regarding debt issues have nearly doubled over the course of a year. The National Debtline experienced even greater demand, with a 70% increase in debt-related queries compared to this time last year.

Accoding to Credit Action, another debt charity, the total level of personal debt in Britain, including mortgages, now exceeds £1.4 trillion.

Commenting on the findings, Beccy Boden Wilks, a spokesperson at the Money Advice Trust said “The indication is that there are definitely a lot of people in difficulty, absolutely.

“The demand for debt advice has never been greater but how long that is going to last depends on lots of other things, such as high unemployment and whether more jobs are going to become available and whether banks start lending.”

Britain’s GDP contracted by an unprecendented 1.5% in the last quarter, pulling the country into an official recession. Analysts predicts that hundreds of thousands of Britons will lose their jobs in the coming months as the country plunges even further into recession.

This entry was posted on Friday, January 30th, 2009 at 11:34 am and is filed under Credit, Credit Cards, Loans, Mortgages. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.