This is a rather funny story, well it will be funny... in about two days (hopefully).
A little bit ago the Man and I decided, against our better judgment, to go to a payday loan place and see if we could get a small loan. I've always maintained that it is really not smart to borrow from yourself... if you live paycheck to paycheck, like most people do, then when you take a payday loan you are borrowing from money that is already budgeted for other things.. in the end you'll have put yourself into bigger trouble then you're already in. That said, the only time I'd even consider doing one is when you know you can budget in that amount from your next paycheck.
At any rate we were supposed to be getting a bonus check so we thought this once it might not be as bad of an idea as all that. So we went into a payday loan place and got the ball rolling. Finally after what felt like an hour later (the Kiddo was doing his best rubber ball impersonation) the paper work was complete... the check was cut. The nice girl behind the counter handed the Man a final piece of paper to sign. Unfortunately that piece of paper was for him to state that he was not a member of the military.. He couldn't do that, seeing as how he's in the reserves. So she took the check back and we left.
I was a little cranky about why they couldn't give us a loan. Apparently the big powers that be passed a bill awhile back that says loan places can't give service members loans with above a certain percentage interest rate. Since most payday advance places charge astronomical interest they CANT by law give loans to service members. In the end though we left the place feeling a little relieved. It wasn't something either of us was comfortable doing to begin with.
Since then, randomly, we've been getting messages from the payday loan place. No real information in the message, just "hey this is so and so from the check place, give us a call back". We assumed (seeing as how we walked out of there empty handed) that they were calling us to tell us about some way they found for us to get a loan from them. Since we no longer wanted a loan we didn't bother calling them back. This past week though the calls began to come in daily, finally the Man called them back... just to get them to stop calling us.
Shockingly it was their collections department!! Apparently somebody had taken that check they cut the Man and cashed it!! After a day of phone calls back and forth with them and their management we think we've got it all squared away. They believe that it wasn't us that cashed the check, once they saw the note in the Mans file that said "military" they knew they would never have given him the check. They are currently doing an investigation and reviewing their video surveillance tapes to find out what happened to the check.
Hows that for a big fat warning about payday loans... you never know what can happen!
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