Ante up!
With a national election just over a month away, the ante has been upped in the ways that candidates are bashing not just their opponents’ (lack of) credibility, but they as people. As a matter of fact, I haven’t been able to watch an hour’s worth of nightly news over dinner for the last few months, without being berated with a fistful of slanderous attack ads from all over the political spectrum.
Biased Reporting
But even worse than learning of John McCain’s excessive investing in fine automobiles, or Paris Hilton’s worship of Barack Obama, the media’s reporting on various ballot measures in various states has proven to be biased and downright problematic. A glaring example of this “objective” journalism arrived in my Google Alerts this morning (10/2/2008) entitled, “Critics Call Proposition 200 a Trap, Not Payday Loan Reform.”
Tucson Citizen Reporter Garry Duffy begins his anti-Proposition 200 diatribe with the rhetorical question, “Would you knowingly take out a loan with a potential 391 percent annual interest rate that included allowing the lender to electronically raid your bank account for payment?” Members and supporters of the no fax payday loan industry never would do that, for the simple reason that taking out a loan with 391 percent APR is simply absurd. However, despite Duffy’s sensationalized, desperate attempts for readership, the truth is that a person who utilizes a no fax payday loan, as intended, will never even pay a fraction of that in the brief period of time the transaction is outstanding; typically two weeks.
Fully Aware of Terms and Conditions
As for the allegations of payday lenders going in and electronically debiting money from your bank account without you knowing; these allegations are outright lies. Long before an online or brick and mortar payday loans company will give you money, there are detailed applications and contracts that you must sign. When you sign the documents, you acknowledge, in writing, that you fully understand how a lender will collect repayment on the due date, and that you understand your rights as a no fax payday loan customer. So, if you note on your application that your next payday is October 14, you must sign a legal document stating that you understand that the lender will acquire their balance due on October 14 by electronically debiting your checking account. In other words, no payday loan customer is kept in the dark, and no shady practices exist.
Duffy then backs up his fallacious case with stories of “real” people who got in over their heads by taking out a small loan, but ended up paying hundreds of thousands more by rolling the loan over time and again. One of these stories includes the woe-filled tale of a couple who had to keep on rolling over previous payday loans, then took out additional ones to make ends meet; yet another victim of sensationalism, completely ignoring the couple’s obvious lack of financial literacy.
Reading The Headlines
What Duffy also fails to mention is that in most states where no fax payday loans are legal, loan rollovers are severely restricted or completely forbidden. Instead, if someone is unable to pay their balance on the loan’s due date, they are to be given a repayment plan at no additional cost. As a person who minored in Journalism in college, I understand that the Tucson Citizen is a business. I completely understand that the front page story, “Payday Lenders Really Help People When Used as Intended and With Proper Budgeting” won’t sell half as many newspapers and save jobs like the headline, “Loan Sharks Running Payday Loan Companies Ravage Your Bank Account without Your Consent,” will. I feel your pain, Duffy; I really do.
Desperate Attempts To Gain Readers
Our cravings for the latest news and information preserve the livelihoods of lowly news reporters across the nation. However, these jobs should not be retained at the expense of the objectivity, which is still trumpeted within the media’s mission statement. This is where my biggest fear lies at the moment; the newspapers need big, nasty, juicy articles in order to keep their readers coming back for more. But some of these organizations have gotten so desperate to attain this goal, like in the case of reporting on Arizona’s Proposition 200, that they are resorting to the use of half truths and bald-faced lies. Therefore, in order to make the best decision on Election Day, it’s in your best interest to familiarize yourself with all sides of an issue. Find out all the facts about payday loans here at Personal Money Store.
The accusations towards the payday loan companies are absolutely absurd. It is obvious how the industry is keeping all of their customers in the light on what they are doing, they sign the papers, showing they are willing with what will happen, and its based on how much you make on how much of a loan you get, so it’s always able for them to pay it back.
You know, you don’t really get much of a picture at all of the positives of the payday loan industry. Sometimes they can really come in handy, but it’s best when you only take out a small amount and you budget for the payments.
It’s sad that people lie in the media. Unfortunately, people don’t research to the extent that they should. This is quite harmful to society. Some folks believe everything that they hear, even if it’s false. The payday loan industry seems to fall victim to this a lot. The facts reported about payday loans are usually so absurd that the industry is often looked down on. People need to educate themselves and find out the real benefits of a cash advance.
I’m really beginning to get tired of all this sensationalism going on in the media. they create what they want to hear without covering the facts. getting a payday loan isn’t going to put you in debt with absurd annual percentage yields. Most people pay them back in no time and only pay about 30% in interest. That is nothing compared to what you would pay for an overdraft fee from a bank. The media should really look to get their facts straight, not only with the coverage of the payday loan industry, but also most other things they cover.
People need to understand the whole sequence of the payday loan industry before making a judgment. I can assume that most of these illogical writers, who lash out such inaccurate information about the industry, probably has never taken out a payday loan before but has based their information on other peoples experience with the industry. Bottom line is, when using a payday loan responsibly, it is in fact one of the best alternatives when experiences a little financial fallback.
I feel that Payday loans stores do what they can to help you plan financially smart but you have to know how much money you can pay back, just like if you were to get a mortgage on a house, you cant get a house that is out of your price range or you will end up in debt. You have to be responsible.
Political media and media in general are always biased and promote some sort of agenda. So you can be sure that whatever you hear about payday loans from the news or other media source isn’t the full truth. Whatever you hear about your favorite or most hated political figure is most likely misconstrued information as well. The lesson here is that if you are interested in voting for someone or you want to get a payday loan, you should do some research on your own instead of listening to what you hear from the news.