At first when I saw this topic, I thought I wouldn't be sharing any experience as I've never had to take any loan before and even I have which I don't remember, I don't have any bad experiences with it. Loans and debts go hand in hand and one has to be very careful not to be in a debt that can't be paid.
As I've read in someone's title, it wouldn't be a bad loan if the means to pay back went as planned before taking the loan. A lot of people in debt today didn't plan for it, they thought they would be able to pay as promised but the hope they had was taken away.
Image designed with inshot
Because of scenarios like that, even good loans can turn bad loans and the debtor have to bear or overcome the aftermath of such a loan. I have an experience I'll love to share, it isn't my own personal experience but I was a witness to one very close to me, a good loan that turned bad without an early realisation.
Permit me to not share who the person is exactly as I feel it isn't necessary but the lessons learnt from this experience. So I witness a big buy from a shop that allows "Buy and pay small small", an installment payment and you get to take the item home for use.
This individual bought a nice phone with this opportunity having it in mind that her monthly salary and side hustle money will sort the payment even before the deadline given to her. The process to take this item home involved submitting active numbers of her relatives or friends who can vouch for her that she would pay the money.
She didn't see any issues coming from this process since she thought she had it covered and so she submitted about three numbers, her hubby, her daughter and a close friend of hers. It was all joys as she made use of the new phone and not bothering about the possibility of not paying before deadline.
Out of six months, she paid four months thinking it's remaining two months but somehow the app where she pays to was asking for an extra month payment. Sadly, it's about time she paid her monthly fee but no money available to pay and they increased to an extra month. It was in the agreement but she had overlooked it or didn't read it well enough.
So missing a month's payment meant an extra month added to the set date agreement, the loan became hell for her as another month's payment time approaches and she had no money prepared for it. Her last resort was selling the phone she had bought from them which she had paid more than half for and paid back all their balance fee.
She was back to having no phone and no money to get even a small one, it was a definition of falling into a bad loan. If she had knew she wouldn't be able to meet up with the payment, maybe she would have applied for a smaller phone or not take a phone loan at all.
I can still remember how sad she was when she got back from selling her new phone and feeling so bad for the unnecessary mistake she made. Well, she's over it now as everything is quite back to normal for her and she got a phone with her own money without the help of taking a loan.
I don't like to take loans and I pray I don't have to go through that, her experience made me stand stronger on my decision. We know some loans are unavoidable to take but we pray we don't have to go through bad loans.
