THIS UPDATE SUPERSEDES ALL PREVIOUS UPDATES. THIS IS A REAL EMERGENCY AND I AM FRIGHTENED.

BECAUSE OF A 2 MONTH WAIT FOR VALID PHOTO ID, I HAVEN'T BEEN ABLE TO CLAIM UNIVERSAL CREDIT, AND NOW BROMLEY COUNCIL ARE TAKING ON NO NEW CLAIMS, LEAVING ME WITH JSA OR ESA, NEITHER OF WHICH PAYS ANYWHERE NEAR AS MUCH AS UNIVERSAL CREDIT.

LAST SUNDAY I FELT SUICIDAL.

THE MORNING AFTER, SUICIDAL.

AND THEN I AWOKE ON TUESDAY MORNING AND DECIDED ALL OF YOU WHO'VE HELPED ME... YOU'RE MY REASON TO LIVE AND I DON'T WANT TO LET YOU DOWN.

BUT THIS 3 MONTH APPEAL WILL HAVE BEEN FOR NOTHING IF TOMORROW I GO INTO THE MEETING WITH MY LANDLADY AND HER PARTNER WITHOUT ANY MONEY OR ANSWERS.

WITH MY CREDIT SCORE, I CAN'T GET A LOAN.

WITHOUT A LOAN, I WON'T BE ABLE TO AFFORD THE 3-6 MONTHS' RENT THAT I WILL BE EXPECTED TO PAY AS A DEPOSIT ON A NEW FLAT.

PLEASE, PLEASE HELP. I NEED YOUR SUPPORT MORE THAN EVER. IF I LOSE MY HOME, I WILL NOT BE ABLE TO AFFORD TO MOVE AND WILL (IF I'M LUCKY) END UP SELLING THE BIG ISSUE. IN REALITY, IF I END UP LIVING ON THE STREETS, I WON'T SURVIVE. I WON'T WANT TO. THANK YOU.

Appeal Updates and a Thank You

Firstly, THANK YOU to everyone who's lent their support and donated to my appeal.

What I'm going through may not affect you personally, but it could, for any one of us is susceptible to depression and it can strike when we least expect it.

ONE THIRD of the entire UK population will suffer some form of mental health trauma during their lifetime. It's quite possible you could be one of them, and when time comes, I'll be here to help.

Unfortunately, depression can rob us of our confidence, friends, financial freedom and in my case even my job of 15 years and my home.

Please head over to my YouTube channel for the latest update including alternative ways to donate and get involved: https://tinyurl.com/dansdebts

For my Mum

Mum was always proud of me, even when I made foolish mistakes or dumb decisions. She encouraged me to aim high for whatever I wanted out of life, but she always taught me to NEVER hurt others in the process.

Shirley Akers taught me you CAN be successful and still care.

London can feel like the loneliest place on Earth, but with Mum at the end of the phone, I never felt alone. She was my shining light even at the darkest of times.

Every other day we’d try to make sense of our mad world. She had an answer for everything, and every answer turned the most stubborn frown into the biggest smile or brought big, guttural belly laughs out of tears.

A year ago, Mum left us. I didn’t say goodbye.

I didn’t hold her hand and tell her everything would be ok.

I didn’t thank her for being my best friend.

I was at London St Pancras station when I heard she’d gone. Drowning in debt, I’d spent the whole day trying to buy a train ticket.

Mum was there for me throughout my entire life.

The one time she really needed me, I wasn’t there.

I shall never forgive myself for that, but I hope she'll be proud of me for at least TRYING to dig myself out of the mess I've found myself in.

I'd be so grateful to all of you for really getting behind my appeal. I come from a very loving family. Whist not cash-rich, we've always believed in giving to others less fortunate, and that's what I'd like to do today.

My debts are worth over £30,000.

I need just £5,000 - maybe £6,000 - to get back on my feet and repay a debt that will remove the threat of bailiffs entering my home and removing what few possessions I have. It will also help me avoid homelessness by giving me the funds to secure a new home once my tenancy runs out in less than a month's time on 2nd March. Then, I'll declare myself bankrupt for the remainder of my debt as it's really the only sensible solution.

Then, any funds donated above and beyond that £5-6,000 will be redistributed amongst charities catering for the homeless, those in debt and living with depression. If there's enough left over, I'd like to make a difference to the lives of a small number of special people in my own life who've also been struggling of late.

Thank you.

I am Daniel James Akers.

And the resulting fallout?

1x damaged credit score

1x diagnosis for work stress-related depression

1x diagnosis the following month for HIV

1x destroyed credit score (thanks, HSBC)

Every UK bank closd its doors to me, even the payday lenders.

I struggled on, using every spare penny to repay personal debts.

I used a food bank on several occasions.

And I walked 10 miles home when the banks were too tight and the train companies too mean to just let me get home safely.

Capitalist Britain no longer had a use for me.

It was time to toss me aside.

Tossed aside by the banking industry, by MPs who ignored my pleas for help, even by my own employer to which I fully dedicated almost 15 years of my life.

2015 started just like any other year.

2016 beat me, but I wasn't beaten.

2017 found me on my knees, begging.

YOU CAN STOP THIS HAPPENING AND I TRULY HOPE YOU WILL!

PLEASE... I NEED YOUR HELP... RIGHT NOW!

50P, £1... WHATEVER YOU CAN AFFORD.

AND THEN (In the immortal words of Sir Bob Geldof) "SHARE. FOR F***'S SAKE F***ING SHARE"!

With less than half of my £5,000 bare-minimum-I-need-to-survive target achieved, I don’t think a career in fundraising beckons.

Even rallying the troops to get 42% up to 50% a few nights back resulted in just one donation, received - as always - with thanks.

My story doesn't feature a happy, giggling child.

There’s no cute furry animal to make you smile.

I don’t enjoy the £700,000 marketing budget of some of our established charities (source: CharityComm - Communications Benchmark 2017).

When every tomorrow is the same as today, it's impossible to imagine a brighter future. People tell me things will improve but there's no guarantee.

When 2015's 'Crazy Dan' made decisions "whilst not of sound mind", the 55 payday loans he was approved for didn't come with a "money back-if-we-f***-up-your-life guarantee".

HSBC didn't offer a "money back-if-we-f***-up-your-plans-to-unf***-up-your-life guarantee" when they refused me an affordable debt consolidation loan that would have been completely paid off by now, and NONE of my friends or family would have been asked to help me out. In fact, I wouldn't be making the tedious appeals I've been bothering you with for the past few weeks.

As for bringing to account the people who caused my depression and then failed to make adequate adjustments, even ignoring the advice of a Government-recognised area of expertise in a breach of the Equality Act, well I can't even talk about that because I'll be sued. FOR TELLING THE TRUTH. In fact, their reluctance to do ANYTHING to improve a difficult situation led to 55 payday loans and arguably, in an attempt to achieve happiness at any cost, I took risks that led to me getting HIV. (I’m doing extremely well in case you wondered: I was diagnosed with a viral load of 3.5 MILLION, which went down to under 40 in just 3 weeks of starting treatment. This is what’s known as Undetectable, and now with a viral load <20, I’m not remotely infectious and I’m as good as cured.)

Depression impairs our judgement whilst stone cold sober much more than a brewery-full of alcohol would on a weekend of binge-drinking. Only 'depressed judgement' is much more dangerous: it convinces us to make monumental errors of judgement, then justify and rationalise them. To pre-medicated 'Crazy Dan', it was perfectly normal to take out 55 extortionately-fee'd payday loans in just 12 months.

But as soon as I knew there was a new problem to tackle, I asked HSBC, my bank of 7 years, for help. Their profoundly insane decision is the reason I have no money in my bank account today. They're why I may end up homeless come March 2nd. Stuart Gulliver and Douglas Flint, two of the most highly-paid and influential banking executives in the world, are responsible for the daily torment I've endured since the moment Mum died. It was HSBC's decision to deny me the solution to my financial troubles and cause potentially ireparable damage to my mental health. Sure, they wrote off my £10,000 loan which I told them wouldn't make a blind bit of difference to my monthly outgoings (it didn't), but they successfully attributed the blame to me by "forgiving" my debt "as a gesture of goodwill".

I got chatting to the Finance Director of a FTSE100 company this weekend on this exact subject, and along with other lenders, banks and financial experts I've spoken to, he declared HSBC KNEW they'd made a dreadful mistake because "there's no way such a profit-hungry bank would write off that amount of debt".

Throughout last year, I worked hard to repay debt to friends and family. I was left out of pocket every month in 2017 as I vowed to repay people worth hundreds ahead of corporations worth billions. To their credit, most of my creditors agreed to wait, then somewhat ironically, they all started to close ranks shortly after I lost my (thing I can't mention). I've accrued 3 County Court Judgements (CCJs) and the biggest bully of all my creditors by a country mille - TM Advances, who front-loaded a £1,500 loan taken in desperation with £6,000 interest - were the first to bring on the bailiffs.

Back now to September 2016, a month which saw me stranded in central London, 10.5 miles from home, twice. I explained to both the Yorkshire Bank and The Co-operative Bank "I have to take my Anti-Retroviral Therapy for HIV every evening at 6:30. If I take them even just an hour late or not at all, they could stop working and I'll develop full-blown AIDS and die, were a suitable replacement not available". On each occasion all I needed was "to borrow £10 for 3 days to get me home" or my alternatives would be "to walk home and take my tablet 2.5 hours late, or on a salary of over £40,000 per year, put my personal safety plus physical and mental health at risk by sleeping on a park bench in central London". Both banks responded similarly: "Your credit score won't let us lend to you", "But I could DIE", I retorted, starkly. "I'm afraid 'policy' won't let us lend to you" was the response that made me realise that if you're of no commercial value to the UK, our (un)United Kingdom would rather see you dead and rotting in a ditch than lift a finger to help.

Just before that thing I'm not allowed to talk about happened on 31st October last year, I'd started to see real improvements in both my financial circumstances and - to a degree - my mental health, although there were other (unspeakable) forces at play which stifled this somewhat.

The past three years have presented me with a whole raft of rock bottoms, with the latest just around the corner on March 2nd, when I may end up sleeping rough on the streets of London, because the only way I'll qualify for emergency social housing is by declaring homelessness. I won't be able to move into privately rented accommodation for the first time in my life, because of my credit score. I'll be expected to pay between 3 and 6 months' rent and no lender will give me a loan for that amount.

Today, I live in fear of having my final few possessions removed and sold by court-appointed bailiffs, and on 2nd March - the month of my 46th birthday - I'll be Daniel James Akers of no fixed abode. Officially homeless, I will have truly lost EVERYTHING.

We're only of value to our country if we're commercially viable.

If we're not turning a profit, we fall into decline.

The UK isn't equipped to stop this kind of thing happening to someone like me, or even you.

There was virtually NOTHING in place to STOP me from falling, apart from The Royal Variety Charity and NABS: The National Advertising Benevolent Fund, who both helped with extremely rare grants in 2017 (they never normally give to single employed adults in financial distress but both made an exception for me by paying off certain bills and with Sainsburys vouchers).

I've called upon the help of Samaritans before, where one volunteer told me "I've known people go through far less than you, and they're no longer with us". The Finance Director I was talking to this weekend said pretty much the same thing. A former colleague helped with a small loan last year because he didn't want me, like a friend of his, to take my own life. An Occupational Health consultant paid tribute to my "resilience and ability to hang onto my job despite all " (I) "was going through". Well, I couldn't hang on forever, but I'm not allowed to talk about that.

Last year, I had 3 sessions with psychotherapist Sandie Meacher in Holborn, London. She told me "This is not the first time I've seen a successful, grown man brought to his knees by the banking industry, nor will it be the last".

IF YOU DON’T DONATE TO THIS APPEAL FOR ME, DO IT TO MAKE A STAND AGAINST AN ABUSIVE BANKING SYSTEM THAT’S STILL ALLOWED TO RIDE ROUGHSHOD OVER US ALL.

I have 462 Facebook friends.

On average, we each have 338.

In a month, this appeal has received only 115 donations, some of those multiple donations from the same amazing people.

It's been viewed 14,700 times but shared by just 176 people.

Earlier this month, I worked out that if all my Facebook friends donated £1 and shared this appeal with each of their Facebook friends who'd also be encouraged to donate £1, I could have received 179,256 views and 179,256 donations worth £179,256.

I'm not naive enough to assume anywhere near 179,256 people would want to donate £1 to a total stranger, but I'm NOT a total stranger. In many ways, I’m just like you.

I've ALWAYS worked hard for a living.

I've NEVER claimed benefits from the State, despite having paid Income Tax and National Insurance every working day since I left college.

I've Always tried to do the right thing by others.

And despite my atheism, I recognise the basic Christian principles of love and kindness and always try to live by them.

179,256 people pay their taxes without giving it a moments' thought. Many of them will have celebrated fruitful lives with a few pints over the weekend. Some of them will decide "sod cooking, I'm taking us all out for a meal tonight" or they'll decide not to bother taking sandwiches into work tomorrow as they're going to treat themselves to a Big Mac, large fries and a chocolate milkshake.

The taxes between them all will be worth millions.

The pints they all drunk will have cost over half a million.

Foregoing a night of home cooking for a local gastropub or a cheap bite at McDonalds? Anything from a few hundred thousand to a million.

PLEASE... I am BEGGING you.

ONE.

LAST.

TIME...

50P, £1... WHATEVER YOU CAN SPARE.

But PLEASE remember to SHARE.

My £5,000 target will barely touch the sides of my debt, but it will be a start. And who knows, in a year's time from now, I could be contributing to a charity appeal you've set up for yourself, a loved one or one of our many deserving charities.

And I will not hesitate to donate AT LEAST £1.

Apologies for laying this on thick, but today I am a shell of a man DESPERATE for your help.

I KNOW I'm not your responsibility.

I REALISE I've made stupid mistakes.

But I have TRIED to rectify them ALL, only to have doors of opportunity slammed in my face at almost EVERY turn.

To corporate Britain, I’m surplus to requirements.

To you, I hope I’m not.

Please, help me make my life worthwhile once more.

If you’ve already donated or have finally been convinced, THANK YOU. Even if I don't know you, I hold in my heart genuine love and affection for you and your incredibly special act of kindness.

Thank you.

Dan

Here's the original appeal text in case you wanted to read it. A lot's happened in the meantime, including having to move out of the flat I've live in for 4 years whilst my landlady sells it.

On 29th March 1972, Ken and Shirley Akers welcomed their second son, Daniel James, into the world.

Above: Dan's net worth at 5:00pm on January 20: just £1.90

For 3 years, Dan was exhausted and felt he'd been doing the work of 2 people, and to cheer himself up, spent 2015 racking up debts due to the outrageous approval of no fewer than 55 payday loan applications:

During one of three consultations with a psychotherapist, Dan learned that 'retail therapy', which is often joked about, is an actual psychological behaviour amongst those not yet diagnosed with depression, or not on medication. In September 2015 he was prescribed antidepressants, although the initial low dose had no effect until his prescription was reviewed the following January. By early March, he had a handle on the situation: that his finances were anything but manageable:

The daily haranguing affected Dan's depression and his medication was increased yet again. He left Stepchange and started dealing directly with his creditors, half of which believed HSBC were in the wrong to deny him a loan, and offered to write off or reduce the debt. However, this caused great damage to Dan's credit file.

A 5 day investigation into a complaint lodged directly with Stuart Gulliver, HSBC's Group CEO, went unresolved for 6.5 weeks during which time the payday lenders had stopped lending and Dan was relying on the goodwill of friends and family.

In September 2016, HSBC offered to write off his entire £10,000 debt but shifted the blame onto him by "forgiving the debt as a gesture of goodwill", a claim finance professionals refuted, stating "a bank would not write off such a large debt in goodwill". Upon making their offer, Dan explained that writing off their loan would not help him financially, because what he really needed was the extra money a consolidation loan would offer, to repay all his other debts. It would have been a better decision by far to offer Dan the consolidation loan:

Above: demands, fines, summons, CCJs completely cover Dan's double bed, sometimes at up to 50 pages deep. They tightly pack a 20x15x10" crate

Throughout the past 2 years, Dan has been shunned by banks, building societies, even local credit unions, there specifically to help people with low credit scores. He's been left stranded in central London with no means of getting home, forced to walk 10 miles after long days at work, and in November 2016, visited a food bank for the very first time:

By this time, Dan was spending all of his spare cash on repaying debts to friends, but with commercial debts remaining and priority bill payments falling behind, he was robbing Peter to pay Paul, with friends topping up existing loans or new loans from more friends. Several friends recommended an Individual Voluntary Arrangement (IVA) as the ideal solution to his debt problems:

TM Advances, a high-interest lender in Leeds, West York

shire, is run by Timothy Mark Allen. When Dan applied for a £1,500 loan with them in January 2016, before his medication for depression took effect, knowing how desperate he was, they approved the loan but front-loaded it with £6,000 interest. When Dan's mum died, he offered TM Advances £1,500 as full and final settlement, which they rejected. They then instructed the courts to issue Dan with a CCJ and recently, Bromley County Court, also upon instruction from TM Advances, granted bailiffs access to his flat to remove and sell all of his remaining property to recoup not £3,300 (the current settlement figure were the loan to be repaid today), but £8,600.

Dan's only way out of debt now was a consolidation loan, but with a credit score at the low end of poor, only guarantor lenders were prepared to work with him. He appealed on Facebook for guarantors, called, emailed and messaged friends, family, former colleagues, appealing to somebody to act as a guarantor. He lowered the amount required so that people were more likely to sign up. His search for a guarantor lasted 4 or 5 months and nobody would lend their support because nobody wanted to take the risk. Then, in late 2016, Dan's landlady agreed to step in. However, due to her impending divorce hearing and wanting no unnecessary liabilities, she asked Dan to pay off his 12 month loan 11 months early:

A week later, Dan received news from his sister, Rachel, that his mum, in hospital with terminal cancer, had taken a turn for the worse and that he should prepare to go and say goodbye.

He spent the whole of Friday morning asking friends for money for a train ticket to Sheffield.

At 4pm, as Dan approached the entrance to London St Pancras station for the journey north, his phone rang:

Dan was on compassionate leave for a month and then, 2 days after returning, he was given his annual appraisal:

Dan completed his first PIP successfully, but was unexpectedly put on a second in September, traditionally the busiest month of the year where staff levels are low and almost every team member takes their main annual family holiday. He failed the PIP. It was reiterated that "the quality of" (his) "work has never been called into question". A major grievance was his punctuality. Dan was occasionally a few minutes late due to train delays but always advised the team in advance:

Although allowed a reasonable change in working hours as part of the Equality Act's section on Disability, Occupational Health's recommendation was declined.

In 2013, although work was extremely busy and stressful, Dan was at the top of his game, earning a good wage.

In September 2015, depression was diagnosed but only after he'd run up an unmanageable amount of debt.

A month later whilst in hospital undergoing treatment for an e.Coli infection, Dan was told he'd tested positive for HIV:

Dan decided to use his HIV status as a force for good:

On the day he returned to work, after a 5 week convalescence from his e.Coli infection, Dan booked in 1 to 1 meetings with his team:

2016 saw several attempts to resolve Dan's financial struggle, but was let down at every turn by the UK banking industry, famous for putting profits before people.

Last year, Dan lost his mum, but due to the continued money and now work problems, didn't have time to grieve.

Then in October, he lost his job.

Today, Dan has nothing. Not a penny in his bank account and just a £10 overdraft. He makes regular use of food banks and hasn't bought new clothes for over 2 years.

Dan has upon his shoulders the debt of a small country, several CCJs, an outstanding fine for ACCIDENTAL non-payment of a train ticket, and lives the life of a prisoner in his own home, as the shadow of court-appointed bailiffs looms large.

On 25th February, Dan will lose his home if he can't to pay the rent.

When that happens, he will have truly lost everything.

6 year old Daniel James Akers fell in love with radio. He went on to volunteer at the BBC at 12 and was a radio presenter by the age of 19. Throughout his 30s he was a writer, producer and sound engineer up until he lost his job late last year.

Depression undoubtedly contributed to Dan's downfall, and although there are days when he wakes up wishing he hadn't, he does have good days too:

On 27th December, £994.54 of bill payments including Dan's guarantor loan, were declined by Barclays Bank, defaults which will cause more damage to a credit file that's all-but destroyed:

On New Year's Eve, a member of the public stepped forward to pay Dan's broadband bills for the next 6 months:

Anything you donate will help enormously, and it'll help even more if you could forward a link to this JustGiving page to everybody you know, and please, ask them to do the same.

Thank you.