Seeking Quick Loans, Soldiers Race Towards High-Interest Traps
The landscape is the same: the main gate of a large military base opens onto a highway lined with shops eager to make small, fast and remarkably expensive loans, no questions asked from Puget Sound in the Northwest to the Virginia coast.
There are many than 200 of the quick-loan outlets around the Navy bases of Norfolk and Hampton in Virginia; nearly two dozen round the aquatic Corps base at Camp Pendleton in Ca; and three dozen within three kilometers regarding the Army’s Fort Lewis in Washington State.
A good time so the young Navy petty officer and her husband in the Puget Sound area had no trouble finding a willing lender when they wanted to borrow money between paychecks to show visiting relatives.
Having the loan was quick and convenient, too.
To borrow $500, they published a $575 check into the loan provider, become cashed on the payday that is next than a couple of weeks away. However in accepting that instant loan, the couple, that would speak about their experience as long as their identities weren’t disclosed, had been additionally agreeing to cover an astounding yearly interest greater than 390 per cent. In comparison, that loan from the credit union could have taken days that are several longer but expense you can forget than 18 per cent.
Repaying their fast-money loan took a bite that is big for the couple’s next paycheck, making them brief whenever other bills dropped due. With official-sounding names like Military Financial Network so they borrowed again, and again, until they had raised about $4,000 through more instant loans, some of them. Continue reading Seeking Quick Loans, Soldiers Race Towards High-Interest Traps →