Stories of Sensationalism
It is distressingly common for the media to paint a story of sensationalism when it comes to payday loan companies. Accuracy is the first casualty in their efforts at fear-mongering, and what incentive do they have to present information in a clear-headed fashion? Tales of a dark, trenchcoated villain, twirling a waxed handlebar mustache, plotting the ruin of consumer after helpless consumer with a seductive cycle of debt. It makes for a nice little Vaudevillian melodrama. It makes for good copy, as corny as it sounds.
But life defies such easy categorization. The same is true when it comes to the truth about customers who make use of a payday loan. Are they the poor and the downtrodden? Are no fax payday loan customers hopelessly addicted to loans and rollovers? Are they trapped in a debt bear trap and ready to chew off their own leg for more?
No. Payday loan customers stand on their own two feet
Faxless payday loan companies assist a clientele from all walks of life. But when the average customer profile (female and male) for a major lender that works with Personal Money Store is considered, it’s easy to see that the media horror stories represent a tiny minority of cases. Even things that nobody would argue are unhealthy – like water- can seem dangerous in the hands of a visible minority who happens to make the 11 o’clock news. Payday loans help the great majority of consumers who call upon them, and they do not create a cycle of perpetual debt. The proof is in the numbers – even though it doesn’t make for a juicy story for the Center for Responsible Lending or some other bank-sponsored interest group to crow about…
The average female customer | Meet Jane Doe
- Age: 30-34
- Marital Status: Married
- Number of children: Two to three
- Occupation:School district, 35-40 hours
- Education: Two-year college degree
- Family income: $30,000-$40,000/year
- Kids’ school (public/private): Public
- Vehicle(s): SUV, one to five years old
- Hobbies: Family-oriented activities
- Shopping: Groceries, children’s items, clothing
- Preferred Movies (genre): Comedy, family
- Web sites: News, TV entertainment, food/recipes
- Health status (challenges): Maintaining good health
- Weight: 140-150
- Books: Food/recipes, health, romance
Female faxless payday loan customers are dedicated to family life and they are urban professionals. They aren’t very different from you and me. The same is mostly true of the average male payday loan customer, with some differences. Male customers who originate the loans are typically single and childless, perhaps reflecting their bachelor status. Neither group could honestly be classified as poor or downtrodden.
The average male customer | Meet John Doe
- Age: 27-32
- Marital status: Single
- Number of children: None
- Occupation/employer: Laborer/Contractor
- Education: High school diploma
- Family income: $28,000-$30,000/year
- Neighborhood (urban, rural, density): Urban/suburbs
- Vehicle(s): Compact, three to six years old
- Hobbies: Social events/gatherings, sporting events
- TV shows: Sports, reality TV
- Shopping: Groceries, Internet
- Movies (genre): Comedy, horror
- Web sites: Entertainment/comedy, sports
- Health status (challenges): Maintaining good health
- Weight: 140-150
Who uses payday loans? I do. You do.
For anyone who has ever been in a short-term financial jam, speed, convenience and discretion are valuable watchwords when it comes to digging your way out. These are all things that a payday loan offers. Used responsibly, they don’t trap anyone in a vicious debt spiral. They are quite different from the revolving debt quagmire of credit cards, late fees and checking overdrafts. The truth doesn’t always make for entertaining news copy, but it’s still the truth. Look in a mirror and ask yourself if you would ever use a payday loan. The answer may not be as much of a surprise as you think.
great article
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Oh, how the media seems to love negative stereotypes. There just doesn’t seem to be any room for fact in the spin, does there? The world might cave in if they found out that the average payday loan customer was Joe Sixpack, the very person they are trying to defend against the “predatory” payday lenders, who is probably getting a payday loan to pay off the usurious mortgage or credit card interest made by ever so virtuous multi-national finance companies on Wall Street. Oh, heaven help us if the average American had an iota of choice in his personal finance, the sign of a competitive, healthy free market.
I love how the media paints the picture that people who use payday loans are below the poverty line and can’t afford to pay the loan or the fees back. Most payday loan users are your average soccer mom or college student that has just had an emergency or an unexpected bill come up.