Consumer credit is growing ever tighter. Prices are rising, wages are being frozen, jobs being lost. Times are tough and increasingly people who are finding themselves short of cash are heading to the internet to secure quick and easy but very, very expensive short term loans. Cyberspace has proved the perfect breeding ground for smart young loan entrepreneurs who are capitalizing on lax regulation and consumer need to build a multimillion-pound industry. And with interest rates running as high as nearly 3000% APR, a new generation of online borrowers, many from the middle class, are slipping ever deeper into debt. Phil Kemp investigates the growing market for high-cost lending amid growing calls for the industry to face tougher regulation.