I can't believe how some people do this paycheck to paycheck. A friend of mine did it for like 4-6 weeks then they wouldn't let him do another one because the law here wouldn't allow it. So he just went across state lines and got another to pay it off. He just kept digging himself into a hole and his parents eventually bailed him out.

I used it once because I was 40 dollars short on rent and I had a coupon in the mail for 10 dollars off my first loan. It was eitehr 25 dollar late fee plus x amount of dollars a day or 5 dollar charge on 100 dollar loan. I went with the loan. It used to be only 15% here but now I hear it has gone up to 20 or more.

Payday loans are about as sensible as Rent to Own electronics. You can get a $500 stereo for around $900 if you pay in installments. Lower-cost alternative to what? A loan-shark?

No one is forced to use payday loans.

It's like buying a Louis Vuitton purse and complaining that it cost 50 times more than a Wal-Mart purse. Don't buy the LV purse then.

Sorry for being debbie-downer.

No one is forced to use them but the people who do are generally not of the type to know what they are signing. They don't put these places in the nicest areas and there is a reason for that.

@Mojosan:

Yes, but as a matter of public policy, we should not allow nor tolerate business that survive solely off the manipulation and exploitation of others.

Furthermore in an attempt to be comical, your analogy ends up completely invalid and erroneous. Payday loans aren't some luxury good that people mistakenly buy into because they want to be trend conscious. Payday loan places advertise and position themselves as a viable means to help get by as evinced by that shill Mary Jackson's quote. The payday practices appear to be highly predatory and deceitful in intent and do not warrant our apathy for those that get taught the hard lesson from payday loan places.

@NeoteriX: "Yes, but as a matter of public policy, we should not allow nor tolerate business that survive solely off the manipulation and exploitation of others."

How does one put the politicians out of business?

Lower-cost alternative to what? A loan-shark?

You know, I think that actually is what the guy meant.

People who're down there grazing the poverty line - obviously, or de facto because they've maxed out all of their other credit options - really do have no other legal loan options, if you don't count pawn shops. And you've got to take a pawn shop something pretty substantial to get enough back from them to equal a payday loan, even if your salary's pathetic.

So, yes, a zillion-percent payday loan really is a lower cost option when compared with Vinnie the Toecutter's easy terms.

If only because of how expensive it will be for you to fix what Vinnie does to you if you miss a payment.

"we hear that Ben Stein and Warren Buffet use payday loans all the time."

Well, I did at least get a good laugh in.

asdfads

Crap. Sorry about that previous post.

I was going to say... they are cheaper than overdraft fees. There was an interesting study put out by the New York Fed a few months ago on this very issue.

There is a segment of the population that, for whatever reason, is hard-wired into using these products. They're like cigarettes.

In Georgia there's a big push going on to repeal a de facto ban on payday lenders that was passed only three years ago (read: "Big push" = "industry writing the legislation and buying the votes"). Hence the PR push alongside the bribes..

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/161208/payday_loa...

I live in a smallish town ~26,000, with a state university and a tech college, and there are at least 10 of these payday loan places in town. They prey on people who need quick money and don't have any other means to get it... I find it hard to believe that there are not laws in place to protect people who actually use these places.

You find these places around military installations ALOT. Usually there's a main thoroughfare right outside the gate that goes something like this: Payday Loan shop, strip club, pawn shop, pawn shop, payday loan shop, strip club, ad naseum.

Talking about predatory though, at one post I was at, the local used car dealers had a little practice they called the 1201 clause. These places prey on low ranking, no credit having, underpaid soldiers. Basically, the clause said that payment was due at 1200am on the due date and subject to immediate repossession if not paid--and it was usually on payday before the troops got their paychecks. Tow truck owners would circle the barracks parking lots at 1201am waiting for the calls to repo these kids cars. How utterly sickening. Thank goodness that someone finally came to their senses and made it illegal.

"we should not allow nor tolerate business that survive solely off the manipulation and exploitation of others."

The Central Committee awaits your 5-year plan, Chairman Mao. BTW, what do we do with all these sparrow corpses?

@Panhandler:

Let's see you make an actual policy argument to rebut me instead of calling me a Communist.

Okay. As a "policy argument," when is marketing "manipulative"? When is profit "exploitative"? When is capitalism NOT "surviving solely off the manipulation and exploitation of others"?

Off of what other substance does "business" survive? Wheat germ and self-satisfaction?