They’ve been here to stay. They just yassified them and are now aiming them at a different demographic. They’re trying—against all logic—to gentrify poverty traps. Welcome to the future.
They never left. The financial vultures just keep renaming them and finding other loopholes to skirt regulations and keep trapping victims in their endless debt spirals.
A lot of the payday loan companies seemed to disappear in the UK. The main one was Wonga, which went under after we made it so that companies lending money would have to pay compensation if they lent money to people who would be unlikely to be able to repay it.
Then there was places like BrightHouse which specialised in selling basic household items to poor people with a 99% APR on them. So that £300 washing machine ends up costing over £1000 by the time they own it.
The current one is places like Klarna, which is a buy now pay later system. Popular because it doesn’t charge any interest (most of the money comes in fees from the retailers) and they don’t put it on your credit history, but miss a payment and they’ll be on you like a ton of bricks.
It’s just the same thing over and over, which a slight change to skirt any new regulations. It’s still the same cash flow problems underlying it all.
When Arizona banned them almost all of them just pivoted to auto title loans. These use the same laws pawn shops exist under, so you’re basically pawning off your car for a couple hundred dollars.
I avoid Klarna and similar services like the plague. But if it’s really interest-free, it doesn’t belong in the same category as those scummy loans with crazy interest at least.
There’s some different options they offer. One where you pay installments with interest, and another where it’s just like credit cards - if you pay it off before the period (30 days), you don’t pay any interest.
Still a million times better than payday loans, but ideally people shouldn’t put themselves into debt for stuff they don’t need.
Payday loans making a comeback, eh?
And because they don’t appear on your credit check you can take a dozen out from different companies! What could possibly go wrong?
They’ve been here to stay. They just yassified them and are now aiming them at a different demographic. They’re trying—against all logic—to gentrify poverty traps. Welcome to the future.
They never left. The financial vultures just keep renaming them and finding other loopholes to skirt regulations and keep trapping victims in their endless debt spirals.
It tends to move around from scam to scam.
A lot of the payday loan companies seemed to disappear in the UK. The main one was Wonga, which went under after we made it so that companies lending money would have to pay compensation if they lent money to people who would be unlikely to be able to repay it.
Then there was places like BrightHouse which specialised in selling basic household items to poor people with a 99% APR on them. So that £300 washing machine ends up costing over £1000 by the time they own it.
The current one is places like Klarna, which is a buy now pay later system. Popular because it doesn’t charge any interest (most of the money comes in fees from the retailers) and they don’t put it on your credit history, but miss a payment and they’ll be on you like a ton of bricks.
It’s just the same thing over and over, which a slight change to skirt any new regulations. It’s still the same cash flow problems underlying it all.
What’s that you say? You want to order Chinese food tonight and pay for it in 4 separate payments over 4 months? Sign up here!
When Arizona banned them almost all of them just pivoted to auto title loans. These use the same laws pawn shops exist under, so you’re basically pawning off your car for a couple hundred dollars.
I avoid Klarna and similar services like the plague. But if it’s really interest-free, it doesn’t belong in the same category as those scummy loans with crazy interest at least.
There’s some different options they offer. One where you pay installments with interest, and another where it’s just like credit cards - if you pay it off before the period (30 days), you don’t pay any interest.
Still a million times better than payday loans, but ideally people shouldn’t put themselves into debt for stuff they don’t need.