Wonga wrote to my son, 12, urging him to take a payday loan Wonga states clearly on its website that people must be over 18 to qualify for a loan, which is standard practice among payday lenders. However, there is evidence that children have taken out payday loans. An analysis of 780 cases reported to the Citizens Advice consumer service between November 26 and May 13 revealed evidence of lending to under-18s. In one example, a carer contacted the charity about a payday loan granted to a child who was in the care of children's services. On another occasion a 16-year-old boy had been able to take out a payday loan with an online lender. Citizens Advice said the lender had not checked how old the boy was before awarding the loan; his mother, who contacted the charity, said she was unable to close the account and was worried that her son would take out further loans he wouldn't be able to repay. Gillian Guy, chief executive of Citizens Advice, said: "No lender should be targeting children through advertising which suggests that getting into debt is the norm. We've had complaints from parents and young people under 18 who have taken out a loan without realising what they are getting into. This exposes the lack of checks, as lenders aren't establishing who the borrower is, if they can afford to repay or if a loan is actually suitable for them. On November 5 a parliamentary select committee questioned representatives of payday loan companies including Wonga about their high interest charges and the speed with which they sent cash to borrowers. Labour leader Ed Miliband had earlier attacked Britain's "Wonga economy" and said payday lenders were responsible for a "quiet crisis of thousands of families trapped in unpayable debt." Martin Lewis, founder of MoneySavingExpert.com and a fierce critic of payday lending, condemned companies for "grooming" young people with advertisements on children's television channels. He told the Telegraph that while Dennis Earle's case "sounds like a marketing error," "it is an example of the dangers we face with the normalisation of payday lending across a young generation." He added: "The number of people taking these loans is far higher among the under-30s. Sadly, it's becoming a trend. Dennis Earle's parents said they hoped any loan would have been refused, had their son acted on the letter. Teresa Earle, 43, a registered childminder, said: "He had heard of Wonga through the adverts on television but I don't think Dennis knows what a loan is. He wouldn't have known what to do. Their main concern was how Wonga obtained their son's personal details. He is only 12 years old, he is not on the electoral roll. I just can't see how they could link Dennis to anything," said Teresa. When the Telegraph asked Wonga how this could have happened, a spokesman said it recently ran "a small direct marketing campaign" to explain the business. We took special care to make sure we only contacted people aged 18 and over, including checks against the electoral roll, and only wrote to people who had chosen to receive this type of communication. Wonga said an online survey was filled out in Dennis's name, on which his age was given as over 18. "We're contacting his father with more information about this, and have removed Dennis's details from our database," said the spokesman. As a responsible lender, we never lend to anyone under the age of 18. We have one of the most sophisticated risk-decision processes in the industry, which crunches thousands of pieces of data each time someone applies for a loan. This includes numerous checks on an applicant's date of birth. The payday loan industry has grown rapidly in Britain since 2008 as banks have grown more reluctant to lend, forcing many families to find other ways to manage their household finances. The Office of Fair Trading estimates that the market was worth £2bn last year, up from an estimated £900m in 2009. Lenders have been heavily criticised for targeting vulnerable customers and charging high interest rates, which can top 5,000pc on an annual basis. The Government will hand supervision of the industry to the Financial Conduct Authority, the financial watchdog, in April. Russell Hamblin-Boone, chief executive of the Consumer Finance Association (CFA), which represents many payday lenders, said: "Ensuring that marketing activities are never directed at people who are not able to properly understand the features of a loan and the risks associated with borrowing is absolutely crucial." Wonga is a member of the Finance & Leasing Association, which declined to comment.