Dear Big Jim. I'm sorry to hear what happened. But in this case my sympathy is prejudiced a little bit because of the business you were in. Coming from "poor white trash" myself, I am all too familiar with finance companies, title pawns, and paycheck advancers. Some of my happiest moments have been paying off a loan with a finance company early and seeing the disgruntled look on the loan officer's face at losing the interest I would have paid otherwise. I'm hoping that you are one of the small minority who was ethical and honest in your dealings with your customers. The vast majority of these businesses are the scum of the earth. I have had loans with them, had one curse me out on the phone when I was less than 2 weeks late with a payment (that one got paid off very early so they wouldn't get all their interest and finance charges), seen them threaten to have someone thrown in jail if she didn't pay. I even did repo work for a short time, and after I went to repo a car from a very nice young man who I found out was only a week late on a payment. I shook his hand and told him to have a nice weekend and went home with a hurt conscience.
I don't have a whole lot of sympathy for the customers of businesses like yours, but the way they are taken advantage of turns my stomach. Rarely does anyone get ahead by using a loan shark. Someone who has to resort to taking out this kind of loan will only end up losing money in the long run. Even paying off the loan on time doesn't do a damn thing to help their credit rating.
Jim, I really hope that after you get this taken care of, you will find another line of work. Don't think for one second that you are "helping" anyone by giving paycheck loans. Your customers are already living from one check to the next and the only thing you are helping is their ability to stay in debt. That customer could very well find a way to hold out a few days till payday, but chances are they are coming to you because some other creditor is strong-arming them for a payment. True, there are exceptions and some may very well be one-time customers in real need. But how many of your customers do you know by name because they have been in so many times?
I can remember some times when I went in to make a payment and saw someone signing for a loan how much I wanted to grab the pen away and tell that person not to do it. Just wait till next payday or the next one after that, you can find some other way, don't spend the next year paying $750 to borrow $500 today!
Like I said, I hope that you were at least one of the ethical and honest lenders. Another poster mentioned contacting the authorities. Take the computer out of the office as quick as you can, the feds are very skilled at retrieving "deleted" data and incriminating evidence may still be on the hard drive and needs to be protected for your sake.
After all is said and done I hope you are vindicated and this crook does some hard time. And I really hope you get out of this line of work. There are so many more honorable ways to prosper in the loan industry than what you are doing now.
Mike.
"Well done, Blind Squirrel! You've found an impressive nut!