Pensioner's £30,000 cards debt

AN elderly widow who ran up a £30,000 debt on credit cards suffered a stroke after failing to pay back the lenders.

Kate Purnell, 84, collapsed after struggling to repay the debt on 20 cards. Mrs Purnell, who lost her husband in the Second World War, was allowed to borrow the money despite living in a rented mobile home and receiving a pension of just £76 a week.

When she struggled to repay the debts she received 'terrifying' letters from bailiffs and was threatened with court action.

Her family claim her mental state has reverted to childhood because of the pressure she has been under. Last night, they condemned the credit card firms for lending her the money.

Paul Kennedy, 48, who lives with Mrs Purnell's daughter Jeannie Judd in Martock, Somerset, said: 'All the threatening letters she was getting eventually caused her to have a stroke. Now her mind's gone.

'She had all her mental faculties before. To me it is absolutely unbelievable that this kind of thing can go on with no checks being made as to a person's ability to repay these things.'

Mrs Purnell, a former telephonist for Barclays Bank, took out her first credit card in the 1990s. She used it to buy groceries, Christmas presents and make donations to charities.

When she was unable to repay the debt on her first card, she took up offers of further credit cards that came through her letterbox to repay what she owed.

One lender, MBNA, gave her a £9,000 credit limit. Barclays, her former employer, lent her £4,000. As she struggled to repay the money, she turned to a debt repayment company and hid her cards in a bedside drawer at her home in Ruskington, Lincolnshire.

She soon fell behind with the £100 monthly repayments - and threats of court actions from her creditors began.

After paying her household bills, she was left with just £3.12 a week. Mrs Judd said her mother's eyesight was so bad that she was unable to read the small print on the credit contracts.

The Bank of Scotland and Capital One said they would try to resolve the problem, while First Direct said it would treat the case 'sympathetically'.

A spokesman for Barclaycard said the firm has frozen collections on her Barclaycard and would not send her any more letters.

Only one of the lenders contacted - Grattans Catalogue - agreed to cancel her debts.

Mrs Purnell suffered a stroke in January before her daughter, who had tried to contact the lenders, could resolve the problem.

She is now said to be so confused she believes she owes only £18.

Mrs Judd, 59, said: 'What horrified me was that all these banks had offered an 84-year-old pensioner so much credit. And when she couldn't afford the payments, they hounded her with debt collection letters. I can only guess what horrors she went through before the stroke, the torment on her poor mind of all those letters.'

Mervyn Kohler from Help the Aged said: 'This is appalling. There must be a better way to help elderly people get credit and not let it build up to ridiculous levels like this.'