Doug Semler wrote:

You know. I never could figure that out. Neither the something like
400% APR charged by places that do paycheck advances (look at the
contract, the "fee" they charge is actually a "prepaid interest,"
which, over the course of a short period of time, amounts to that
insane amount.) But I can't loan my neighbor 500 bucks like that...

But, of course, those are still under "regulatory" or "statutory"
constraints. Even if the constraints are quite lax.

One good thing the Arkansas Legislature did a couple of years ago was deny
the places where you write a post dated check and then get a loan based on
it the right to use the state's hot check recovery program.

Before they did that it was a pretty sweet deal for the check/loan places.
They had the full force of the state's county sheriffs and prosecuting
attorneys to act as there collection department for bad loans.