see - i knew you'd get a response, italy. these people on this forum are the people who know hsbc and many, many of them have been touched by the managed loan disease.
it is a ml from hsbc which brought me to this site in the first place.
my son (18 at the time) was working away from home - unable to manage his monthly salary and started down the
overdraft syndrome. they kept uping and uping his limit until he owed each months salary before it was paid. then they ever so politely encouraged him to take out a loan (never calling it a managed loan - but it was) "it will pay off your
overdraft" "you can have a little extra for yourself", blah, blah, blah. well, unknown to us - he signed his financial life away to hsbc and proceeded to pay through the nose (the
interest rate is way higher than a normal loan), took insurance for it without his understanding, upped the interest whenever it took their fancy and hey, presto - a couple of years down the line - he still owed what he owed in the beginning - in fact - more!!!
it is a never ending way of tieing you to them.
anything would be cheaper in the long run!!!!
if you take a look at that thread link that pete has mentioned - you will find story after story after story of people who have been right where you are now and have made a very grave error - that error is called a managed loan. if you still have doubts - put managed loan into the search engine on the blue strip at the top of this page and you'll be busy for a year reading all the sad tales - no one has yet to write about what a good idea a managed loan is and how it has helped them.
it's like they used to say about drugs - when it comes to a managed loan - JUST SAY NO!
managed loans 
