May 08 2009
So You Think You Want a Payday Loan?
The real truth about online payday loans….
Run the other way. Seriously. If you think it’s a quick fix that you’ll be able to get out of next week, you’d better pick up a magnifying glass and read that fine print a little closer!
I’m happy to say that we never fell in to that particularly vicious payday loan nightmare. Well sort of not, at least not through the typical Payday Loan businesses that populate any urban or not-so-urban locale and prey on those who, no matter the circumstance, are in need of money NOW!
I think, in total, twice we used such a service (the brick and mortar variety), and it only took ONE time dealing with an online payday loan operation to learn that we would NEVER go down that particulary muddy, bumpy road again.
Desperate times call for desperate measures, yes they do; however, I am here to tell you that letting panic win out and allow you to go against your better judgment will never be the right choice. We were in one of our many binds, a few years back, and needed money just to live on (gas, food, a utility about to be shut off, etc., etc., blah, blah…), so we looked online, and found a place, got a quick couple of hundred bucks and never took the time to figure out that we had just screwed ourselves for at least a good 6 months. I can’t find the exact details because that part of my check register has mysteriously disappeared, but suffice it to say that we got a $300 payday loan in the summer of 2007 and when it was finally said and done, in January of 2008, we had (weekly) paid them back the $300 AND another $450 in interest and “account maintenance” fees.
You ask why we didn’t put a stop to this sooner? Because one of us was an idiot, lost the original copy of the signed “contract”, and then when we tried to contact the place, we could either never get through or when we did-we couldn’t get a straight answer. Not to mention, figuring our less-than-intelligent states of mind back then, we didn’t have the first clue as to how to put a stop to it. Finally, after 5.5 months of this crap, we started researching, called the company back, and then magically they said “Oh, yeah, your last payment comes out this week….”
I guess the lesson I would LOVE for you to glean from this so very pathetic moment of weakness in our financial history is this:
If you’re desperate for cash (for bills, survival, etc.), it would almost be more advisable to sell off a kidney than to deal with online payday loan services. Don’t do it. Do you HEAR ME? DO NOT DO IT!
If you don’t believe me, just google any online payday loan service….and keep looking until you see reviews or forum posts, etc. You could spend hours reading horror story upon horror story about how some of these places operate.
Sell something instead. That’s what they make pawn shops for, right? Quick cash, don’t have to pay it back, and don’t have the nightmare of seeing some crooked business have access to your bank account until they are damned good and ready to stop taking out their weekly withdrawals.
