American's living Paycheck to Paycheck

[Fife]

I've represented some payday loan / title loan / check cashing companies, and several pawnbrokers.

They don't all succeed; it's a competitive market. But the ones that make it do very well. The secret to their success: transparency and disclosure. They don't hesitate to explain that some charges are based upon a current assessment of risk of loss; they know that good customer service is based upon full disclosure and easy to understand terms. Customers appreciate that and trust people who operate openly and honestly.

An honest and open financial partner is like a straight and honest bail bondsman. Their customers would run through fire for them.

[Okeefenokee]

[Okeefenokee]

It's not even a problem. It's cheaper if you are working poor. The banks will fuck you over sideways.

True banks will fuck people over with fees and more fees. The issue with pay day loans is that they add a high interest to those loans and most people then end up not being able to pay off the basic amount borrowed, in the first place. Instead of being in debt to a bank you are now in debt to a pay day loan place and/or a title loan place.

Show your work. Where did you see that MOST people who used payday loans can't pay them back?

[Speaker to Animals]

I've represented some payday loan / title loan / check cashing companies, and several pawnbrokers.

They don't all succeed; it's a competitive market. But the ones that make it do very well. The secret to their success: transparency and disclosure. They don't hesitate to explain that some charges are based upon a current assessment of risk of loss; they know that good customer service is based upon full disclosure and easy to understand terms. Customers appreciate that and trust people who operate openly and honestly.

An honest and open financial partner is like a straight and honest bail bondsman. Their customers would run through fire for them.

Absolutely ZERO "What the fuck happened to my money" moments. The fees are upfront. The funny thing is, for a lot of people, I am pretty sure it comes out ahead of the banks. It's no wonder the banks are lobbying the government to ban these guys.

[Smitty-48]

When I used to use those cheque cashing businesses, Money Mart is the big one here, although by percentage the hit was significant, my cheques were so small at the time, it's not like I wasn't prepared to part with that sort of chump change so I could go out drinking with my mates, obviously I wouldn't cash a ten thousand dollar cheque there, but that's not the kind of cheques you are cashing when you're a prole making peanuts an hour.

You wanted to go drinking with your mates tonight, you don't get paid until the end of the next week, it costs you $40 for the privilege, whatever, let's roll. Blew far more money at the bars, than I ever blew at Money Mart.

[Speaker to Animals]

It's about 1-2% in most places, with a minimum fee. Last time I used them to cash treasury checks, it was something like $17 to cash a $3,000 check. You can put it on a pre-paid debit card as well. The monthly fee for a debit card is about $5. So you are looking at less than $25 total per month to cash your check and keep the money on a debit card.

Banks typically come out worse for wear against that unless you are parking a lot more money in them.

It actually reached the point where the government had to contract with a big bank to essentially recreate what recipients were getting through check -cashing places because they didn't want to keep mailing checks. So if you wanted to cash checks, they are just like, look if you want to do that, we will just give you the pre-paid debit card and put the money directly on that each month, and you don't have to deal with bank fees.

Personally, I think that's the way banks will have to go in the future. It's going to be more straightforward and upfront about the fees. Service will have to catch up with payday lenders and check cashing joints as well.

[Smitty-48]

Yeah, it's less if you have the cheque in hand, but for a payday loan, money to go drinking now, charge me interest to payday, it was a high interest rate, but it was only for a week or so, so it's not like the interest compounded massively. Obviously you have to pay the loan off at payday, but even as a quasi adolesecent punk ass, I still managed to make sure that happened on time.

If you gotta tighten that belt and do whatever it takes to pay down that loan, then that's what you do, even as a teenager I could figure it out.

[Speaker to Animals]

I mean.. think about what these fucking bankers are demanding here. People put money into checking and savings accounts that the banks then lend out to other people at interest (making profit on other people's money), and the bankers are still not happy with that so they charge people monthly fees to literally use other people's money to profit from interest from loans.

[Speaker to Animals]

Yeah, it's less if you have the cheque in hand, but for a payday loan, money to go drinking now, charge me interest to payday, it was a high interest rate, but it was only for a week or so, so it's not like the interest compounded massively. Obviously you have to pay the loan off at payday, but even as a quasi adolesecent punk ass, I still managed to make sure that happened on time.

If you gotta tighten that belt and do whatever it takes to pay down that loan, then that's what you do, even as a teenager I could figure it out.

Payday loans are for emergencies. If you use it to get drug/alcohol money, you have a lot worse problems in your near future than your car getting repossessed.

[Smitty-48]

Yeah, it's less if you have the cheque in hand, but for a payday loan, money to go drinking now, charge me interest to payday, it was a high interest rate, but it was only for a week or so, so it's not like the interest compounded massively. Obviously you have to pay the loan off at payday, but even as a quasi adolesecent punk ass, I still managed to make sure that happened on time.

If you gotta tighten that belt and do whatever it takes to pay down that loan, then that's what you do, even as a teenager I could figure it out.

Payday loans are for emergencies. If you use it to get drug/alcohol money, you have a lot worse problems in your near future than your car getting repossessed.

Well, the poor generally have some behavioral issues related to addiction of what sort or another, that's usually how you end up poor in this society, there's not a whole lot of actually poor people here in Canada, who have their shit wired tight when it comes to drugs/alcohol, if you're shi'ts wired tight, it's almost impossible to be poor in Canada.