Loans

Loans are widespread as they come. Easy to come by? Not so much. That is why we are in such a bad situation with this economic crisis. Everyone is indebted to someone, usually a bank. That in itself is not such a problem. As long as you can pay it back. As long as you have a job. As long as you can live with paying someone a certain amount of money a month in order to buy yourself something extra. But what happens when you can't pay it back? The bank usually forecloses on what you had put down as a collateral. And what then? For instance if you bought a house by loaning money from the bank. You have been repaying that debt for some years and suddenly you find yourself in a situation where you can't pay for it anymore. Bank repossesses your house and puts it up for auction. You are left without your house and the money you have already paid for it. Usually when the house is up for the auction it sells for much less than it is really worth. In rare cases when it goes for more then you own to the bank you actually get some money bank but that is chicken feed compared to what you have already paid for it.
Some people risk even more. They don't take loans from the bank because they don't qualify for them anymore. They take money from loan sharks. And dig themselves into an even bigger hole. It is practically impossible to pay back to the loan shark. There are various way in which they scam you in order to take your money and your collateral. I actually found a nice article about scams when it comes to loans. You can read it here: Loan scams