edge2edge, as Mike Halliday already pointed out, there is NO SUCH THING as a 'blacklist' and don't anyone let that word cloud your thinking. We all have a credit rating. Lenders who do credit checks will look at your credit rating and will arrive at their own unique personal decision as to whether or not they will lend you the money.
It is fair to assume that with your unfortunate circumstances you will have difficulty obtaining credit, but i guess it is worth a try as each lender will decide for themselves.
As for provident, i too had a friend who ran a provie scheme. I have to question the comment that they are 'robbing wats-its' for the simple reason that Provident cater for a high-risk market. Many, many people sadly default on provie and the reason they went to them to begin with was because all other avenues of credit and money lending were likely to be unwilling to help, due to what is termed a 'poor credit history'. As such, the repayments are very high and have to be to make it work as a business as the payers are subsidising the non-payers.
No one would expect us to run a business purely to make a loss or only to serve the needs of the public. Provident is no exception. They are merely supplying a gap in the market. And no, I don’t work for them and I’m not fighting their corner, I am simply attempting to fill in the gaps in people’s understanding.