Payday loan companies deserve karma repayments

When overcharging a predatory lender brought me great joy

Shamontiel L. Vaughn

May 30, 2022

Writer’s note: This post was originally published on Medium’s “We Need to Talk” on May 30, 2022.

One of the biggest mysteries to me is why payday loan companies still exist. They are largely scam artists who operate off of people’s vulnerabilities and greed. So when a payday company contacted me today, asking me to write a 12-blog series about their company, I shook my head.

First of all, the invite didn’t even bother to change the name from someone named Melissa to me. Way to be professional! Second, the company only wanted to work on one blog first to make sure we could work well together before hiring me for the other 11 —even though I’m a top-rated freelancer with 108 five-star ratings out of of 110 total jobs. (I’m not knocking the wariness. Sometimes top-rated freelancers have off days, too. My other two ratings were four-star ratings, if you’re curious.)

After asking who Melissa was, I didn’t see the point in being delicate when asking the obvious: What are your interest rates? (I cannot wrap my mind around charging someone a 15% interest rate for $1,000 to be paid back in 14 days. If they could come up with $1,150 in 14 days, they wouldn’t need you in the first place.)

(Un)Fun fact: In the state of Illinois, payday loan interest rates are 404%. Click here to find out the rates for the other 49 states.

I asked do they target low-income communities. To no one’s surprise, I got a song and dance about how people should pay their interest and initial borrowing amount on time if they agree to the loans. Once again, I don’t think payday loan companies realize — or maybe they do? — just how desperate someone has to be to borrow from them.

So I gave the company my rate, and it was double the amount I usually charge for the same word count at my minimum hourly rate. The client told me that they couldn’t afford my rate, it was out of their budget and they wanted to pay less. My response? “So do the people who borrow loans from your company.”

I blocked and rejected the job.

I had no interest in taking on this job to begin with, but sometimes companies need to be reminded what karma is. If I were to take on that writing job, I was going to drain them dry. Unfortunately, I know there will be a writer who will negotiate a lesser rate just to pay bills. I’m not knocking it. Everyone has a right to do what they need to get through their day. Still, there are certain jobs I will not take on for any amount of money, but I do like them to get a dose of their own medicine in the process.

Did you enjoy this post? You’re also welcome to check out my Substack columns “Black Girl In a Doggone World,” “Homegrown Tales,” “I Do See Color,” “Tickled,” “We Need to Talk” and “Window Shopping” too. Subscribe to my free weekly newsletter to keep up with all posts at once.

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