The marketing department probably nixed the original “snowball’s chance in hell of paying us back” phrasing.
Not totally related to the payday loans, but PBS Frontline had a really good show on credit cards a while ago. It covers the legal changes that made them so prevalent and the marketing tactics that made them so lucrative, and the generally ignorant culture of credit in America. You can watch it online here.
Shouldn’t that be: “apply directly to the checkbook.”??
Horrible warning. I took out one of those loans, for a friend, because she didn’t qualify. All the promises, I’ll make the payments, etc. You’ve already Imagined what happened. She spent her money on luxuries like food and rent, and I had to use an entire paycheck to pay off that damn loan.
I wish I could have shown that to my friend when he was in college. He ran up a huge credit tab and finally had to declare bankruptcy. He has things much more under control nowdays, but I still hear him budgeting his debt in a big way because he can’t seem to get past the whole “Don’t spend what you don’t have” idea. And he simply has gotten used to budgeting debt expense, so he just adds new debts to the old ones.