You’ve probably gone to your computer to research online payday loans in Texas and instead been met with a barrage of negative information regarding payday loans. Most consumer advocates demonize this type of finance, saying it is predatory and that it needs to be banned because it does not help the average consumer. That is not true at all.
Repeat Customers:
What most detractors of the finance system do is that they focus on the supply side of this business. They don’t look at the demand side, which grows stronger and more demanding every day. What is it that makes borrowers come back for payday loans repeatedly?
In order to answer that question, you need to have an intimate understanding of the average borrower that relies on payday loans. This is typically a low to medium income earner whose wages cannot cover surprise expenses such as a broken-down car, medical expenses, or emergency funding for your business. They typically don’t have savings or investments or even the same incentives to save and invest that higher-income earners have. Their real wages have been on the decline since 1972, and so they find it harder every year to make ends meet adequately. Moreover, traditional banks have all but abandoned them and won’t touch them with a 10-foot pole — not since the financial disaster that began sometime in 2007. What recourse is there for such a consumer? What can they do and who should they turn to when their backs are against the wall?
Watch Out for Predatory Lending:
To be sure, there are some unscrupulous payday lenders that take advantage of borrower’s situations and harass them, making them live in constant discomfort over their loans. They also encourage them to borrow a lot more than they can ever hope to pay back, just so they can roll over the loans or take out other loans to pay the initial ones back and get trapped in a constant cycle of debt. But this isn’t all lenders. To begin with, the lending industry is well regulated with lenders being required to follow strict rules on what they can say or do when trying to recover their money from a borrower. They also aren’t allowed to take borrowers to court in many states.
The good lenders are having their name tarnished by a combined team of bad lenders and so-called consumer advocates who don’t quite understand or empathize with the dire situation of the low-income earners who need these loans.
These are people who typically have neither good credit nor friends and family from whom they can borrow money or ask for help. The payday loan is their last resort. Would it be fair to take that last resort from them and give them no alternative to replace it?
Take Only What You Can Pay Back:
There are also many borrowers who take just enough money to meet their emergency needs. They make sure it is something they can pay back with their paycheck, and they pay it all back on time. Just like there are lenders who encourage borrowers to take only what they can reasonably pay back, and do not harass them when they run late on payments. Payday loans are not evil. They are a quick solution to many of the needs of a certain otherwise abandoned section of society.
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