[axguscbklp]

I used payday loans a few times back in the day - not for anything large, just for like $300 or so at a time. Getting those payday loans really helped me and I never experienced any negative consequences from taking them. I never thought of them as being a scam. I knew what sort of interest rates I was getting into and I took the loans fully knowingly. Personally I did not experience any predatory practices unless you count the interest rates themselves as predatory. That said, I always paid the loans back pretty quickly so I do not know how the companies behave if people are slow in paying.

[pope_meat]

I worked at a payday loan place, and sure, if you make decent income and just find yourself short a few hundred bucks for a few days before a payday you can get out okay, but folks who are at the edge, making ends meet just barely...well those folks get trapped in a very difficult cycle of paying back $795 every two weeks and immediately taking out a $700 loan, rinse repeat 7 cycles of that before the payday company will allow for a different repayment plan (still a hard hole to dig out of, but a little less shitty than the standard pay us 795 right now thing you have to do for 7 cycles before the option for escape is even available to you)

It's a gross business, exploitation of human misery.

[axguscbklp]

It does seem gross and I do not think I would feel good about the idea of working in the industry. That said, I wonder - is it worse than the loans not being available at all?

[npteljes]

It can be both things at the same time. Maybe you go into a casino once, on your birthday, have some fun with $500, and never again. That doesn't mean that casinos don't fuel addiction for profit.

What's important here I think is that while saying that payday loans are bad, I don't mean to take away your positive experience with it. Just that looking at the bigger picture, they do more harm than good. That they exploit the desperation in the people, and that's immoral and should be regulated more.