Pay Day Loans

crankcall

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So 1st , I've never used or needed one. I'm listening to a man interviewed on CTV news, he owns a small engine shop , needed some medical help and borrows $4500 from "pay day loans" , five yrs later he finds out he owes $3790 of the $4500. He pays $200 a month , $156 of which goes to interest on the loan. New gov't rules cap predatory interest at 35%, but older loans are not retroactivly adjusted and many are out there at almost 45% .
A. How stupid (desperate?) would you have to be
B, How terrible is this guy at running a small engine shop?
C. Who would sleep at night with a spiral like that

The loan , which was actually written as an unsecured lined of credit was sold to DirectLend who then sold it to AllianceFinance. What an industry .
 
So 1st , I've never used or needed one. I'm listening to a man interviewed on CTV news, he owns a small engine shop , needed some medical help and borrows $4500 from "pay day loans" , five yrs later he finds out he owes $3790 of the $4500. He pays $200 a month , $156 of which goes to interest on the loan. New gov't rules cap predatory interest at 35%, but older loans are not retroactivly adjusted and many are out there at almost 45% .
A. How stupid (desperate?) would you have to be
B, How terrible is this guy at running a small engine shop?
C. Who would sleep at night with a spiral like that

The loan , which was actually written as an unsecured lined of credit was sold to DirectLend who then sold it to AllianceFinance. What an industry .
Legal payday loan rate just got lowered to $14/100 for two weeks. If you roll a $100 loan through a year, you have paid $365 in fees. That has been lowered by the libs to save us as it used to be 15/100 for 390% APR. It's all talking points and very little actual consumer protection.
 
It's just legalized extortion. Just taking advantage of the most vulnerable.
It's just unfortunate that low income people can't get a loan or line of credit through more reasonable sources.
 
It's just legalized extortion. Just taking advantage of the most vulnerable.
It's just unfortunate that low income people can't get a loan or line of credit through more reasonable sources.
On the flip side, the failure to pay rate is astronomical. While >350% is too high imo, with >10% delinquency, realistically, the 35% rate may be reasonable as below that, no business has an incentive to lend.

The big issue is not enough money coming in compared to going out. Most need a financial intervention, not a loan. I think everyone I knew that used payday loans smoked/drank. Cut the vices for a few months and your future financial path is drastically altered. None were willing to do that.
 
Financial literacy is a skill and an aptitude, just like anything else. We all have our individual strengths and weaknesses.

I'd like to think I have a knack for finances.

Engine repair? Zero knacks for that particular skillset.

I probably get taken advantage of at most of the shops I take my car to.

"You need a new flux capacitor and we topped up your blinker fluid"
"Oh. Ok. Thanks!"

🤷‍♂️
 
Financial literacy is a skill and an aptitude, just like anything else. We all have our individual strengths and weaknesses.

I'd like to think I have a knack for finances.

Engine repair? Zero knacks for that particular skillset.

I probably get taken advantage of at most of the shops I take my car to.

"You need a new flux capacitor and we topped up your blinker fluid"
"Oh. Ok. Thanks!"

🤷‍♂️
As the original story supports, mechanical aptitude without financial aptitude hurts. Financial aptitude without mechanical aptitude works.
 
As the original story supports, mechanical aptitude without financial aptitude hurts. Financial aptitude without mechanical aptitude works.

Good point.

Most problems can be solved by throwing money at it.

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Financial literacy is a skill and an aptitude, just like anything else.
I don't buy it. Financial literacy is basically grade 6 math. If you make $100 you shouldn't spend $150.
 
I don't buy it. Financial literacy is basically grade 6 math. If you make $100 you shouldn't spend $150.

And yet, from what little I remember of Grade 6, there were some students who were good at math, and some spectacularly bad at it.

If you don't believe math is an aptitude, not sure what your take on the above scenario is? That people have done the Grade 6 math and know full well they are sabotaging their finances, but still go ahead and do it?
 
I don't buy it. Financial literacy is basically grade 6 math. If you make $100 you shouldn't spend $150.

Yes but if you’re desperate with a low credit score there aren't too many options and knowing what you’ll pay for a given loan amount after x months/years does take a bit of skill if you’re not explicitly told.

What we need is a kind of central advice system for people, especially the elderly. There’s lots of disparate groups that might do this but having a place to go to to ask “hey, is this my best choice?” would mean less people getting preyed upon.
 
Yes but if you’re desperate with a low credit score there aren't too many options and knowing what you’ll pay for a given loan amount after x months/years does take a bit of skill if you’re not explicitly told.

What we need is a kind of central advice system for people, especially the elderly. There’s lots of disparate groups that might do this but having a place to go to to ask “hey, is this my best choice?” would mean less people getting preyed upon.

There are plenty of organizations set up for financial counselling and debt relief.

Here's one for example:


However, if you don't have the aptitude to search for FIs with the best lending rates for unsecured credit, chances are those are the exact same skills required to search out those counselling sites.

Just look at how many questions are on FB groups and Internet forums asking questions that can easily be answered by a 5-second Google/Reddit search.

GTAM is no exception.
 
A short course in school on how interest works and the effect of various rates should be mandatory in my mind.
If you can't pass the course, you can't graduate high school and then what? Some governments have tried to pass laws to save people from themselves by limiting the time between payday loans (eg you can only get one every three months) but the borrowers just go to a bunch of different lenders to bypass the restriction. If loans were linked to a central database (like opiode prescriptions), I wonder what that would do do the industry? It's hard to find a reason to argue against it other than profitability would suffer or maybe they think borrowers would go back to unregulated loan sharks. The loan sharks may be preferable. You don't get to keep digging for years with no hope of ever escaping. Get behind, get a beatdown, learn that sucks and change paths.
 
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