Martin Lewis Claims 100,000 Attempted Suicide

Martin Lewis is back with more outlandish claims. This time he claims 100,000 attempt suicide each year while in debt. We question his statement and his tone and find his claims don't add up.

First of all, Martin is a tricky character. He is hard to argue against because he often says things to virtue signal. This means that anyone who questions his do-gooder facts must be a nasty person/organisation. Martin never debates with people from the other side. Don't believe us, check out "Martin Lewis Debates Payday loans" on Youtube. Good luck finding anything. When Martin appears on camera, he's always one on one with the interviewer, some lacky presenter from the BBC or he is alone and speaking directly at the camera. Try to engage him on a debate via Twitter, and he blocks you. 

But people are also entitled to question his statements. Especially when he raises the serious issue of suicides. Raising your profile on the back of it is pretty sick. We'll show you just how sick and misleading this individual is.

We viewed his video and studied the data he relies on to make the claims.

Martin's 100,000 attempted suicide claims data

We've read the report, these are some of the key points we found.

Martin's recent statement that 100,000 people attempt suicide each year is just out and out ridiculous. What are the chances that bang on 100,000 tried to hurt themselves, not 100,001, not 99,999 but exactly 100,000? From this, we know that the chances of him being accurate are almost zero. Therefore, we can say with certainty that he/they are making this figure up to a more significant margin of error than the 5,000, either way, the report claims.

His data is so engineered it no longer has credibility. It's been extrapolated beyond any coherent reasoning from such a small pool of individuals up towards 100,000. Under no circumstances does the data show 100,000 people attempting to commit suicide and the nurse asking them why did you do it? Only to be told that debt was the reason. The maximum number of samples seems to be 7,000, but even this is unclear.

Next, his data shows that the study includes individuals aged 16 upwards, since when could under 18's obtain credit? What proportion of those sampled was under 18? No idea doesn't say.

Mental Health organisations say that single issues are almost never the cause of suicides. Suicide and attempted suicides are very complicated issues. To link them to one reason is a misleading statement. Martin most knows this. 

Finally listen to his words very carefully. Martin says that "100,000 people attempt suicide each year while in debt", well most people are in debt of some kind, most people don't attempt to commit suicide. This, therefore, can't be a significant factor. He quite cleverly never states because of debt, but he allows viewers to think that because he asks them to sign a petition to alter it. Somehow inferring that the two are linked. 

Observe the video in detail at the 16 seconds mark. Just as Martin makes this statement, his eyes shifted dramatically because he knows that his statement is false, misleading or just pointless. 

He also says that the law must be changed so that "it no longer forces lenders to send threatening and intimidating letters". What on earth is he talking about? When did the law force any company to do that? What law is he on about? His petition is about Martin, all about Martin and publicity for himself. We've been in this industry over 10 years, and no lender is forced by law to do that. If anything, the law forces them not to do it. I doubt he will explain, but I hope someone asks him specifically which law he claims does that.

The guy is a disgrace, not to be trusted. Why is the media not raising these obvious points with him? Call him out.

Oh, by the way, we can say with high confidence that more people were driven into bankruptcy by his own site brokering loans than all the payday lenders put together. Sorry to break it to everyone, but this guy is a wrong'en.