Much has been reported in recent years about payday loans and the huge fees and sky-high interest charges that borrowers can rack up if they use such services.
And though their demise has been predicted, they live on.
Earlier today on Tell Me More, columnist Petula Dvorak recounted the sad story of Tyrone Newman and his "holiday splurge" that lead to a 651 percent interest rate and the $1,500 he borrowed that turned into what could have been an $18,000 bill if his boss hadn't stepped in to help him get out of that financial mess.
Now, the perils of taking out payday loans to cover expenses and getting further and further into debt if you can't make the payments have been well documented. But what stands out to us from Newman's story is this:
He didn't want to tell his wife that he'd gone to payday lenders to get money for the family's Christmas presents. And as he told Dvorak, "that's all you gotta know. Anything you gotta hide from the wife has gotta be bad news."
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