Payday advances a scourge, but nonetheless a necessity

Payday advances a scourge, but nonetheless a necessity

Fourteen states prohibit payday lending, calling it predatory. The government is stepping in, too. However for people who require the cash, you will find few choices.

  • By Simon Montlake Staff Writer

At a highway junction outside city, a trio of outsized blue guitars installed on a telegraph pole face on the fertile farmlands of this Mississippi Delta. This crossroads is The Crossroads, where guitarist Robert Johnson traded his soul to the devil for musical genius in blues mythology. Today it is a stoplight on Highway 61, a sun-baked strip of discount malls, gasoline stations, fast-food joints – and half dozen shops providing quick cash..

For Jennifer Williams, a high-school instructor, it is a strip of debt and pity and heartache. For decades, she’d invest every payday shop that goes shop, attempting to carry on with repayments, even while sliding deeper into financial obligation. At one point she owed 1000s of dollars to nine cash advance stores in three towns.

“Those places will be the devil. When you have wrapped involved with it, it’s difficult to escape,” she says.

Tales like hers have shone a spotlight that is harsh an ecosystem of alternate finance that affluent bank customers rarely see. Pokračování textu Payday advances a scourge, but nonetheless a necessity