When it comes to improving your finances, easy answers and shortcuts just don’t exist. You’ve
just got to bear down and do it. Advance fee loan: Just as its name implies, personal check to the lender for the amount of money you want to borrow plus the amount of the lender’s fee usually a percentage of the loan amount or a set amount for every £50 or £100 you borrow and you agree to repay the loan on your next payday.
To get this kind of loan, you must pay money up front to the lender sometimes as much as several hundred pounds. Some advance fee lenders will take your money and run, but others will give you a very high-interest loan. Traditional lenders do not make advance fee loans.
Payday loan: This is a very short-term high-interest loan made by check-cashing companies, some finance companies, and businesses that do nothing but make payday loans. To get this loan, you write a
On your next payday when you repay the loan, you get the check back. If you can’t repay the loan on the next payday, the lender rolls over the loan until the following payday in exchange for your paying the lender another fee, which will probably be higher than the first fee. Over time, if you keep rolling over the loan and paying higher fees, the cost of the loan skyrockets and you have a harder time paying it off.
Finance company loan: Finance companies make relatively small high-interest loans.
Whilst some finance company loans are downright dangerous: The lender may be less than honest about all the fees associated with its loan, or it may mislead you into thinking that you’re getting an unsecured loan when the loan actually is secured by one or more of your household goods, such as your furniture, entertainment center, and so on. (This detail is usually buried in the fine print of the loan agreement.) If you default on the loan, you risk losing the asset(s).
Some finance companies encourage consumers to get a bigger loan than the consumers can afford
so they’ll end up in default.
Pawnshop loan: This is a short-term loan (no more than three months, in most states) with a very high interest rate. With this kind of loan, you give the pawnshop an item that you own, such as a TV, DVD player, piece of jewelry, or computer. The pawnshop lends you a percentage of the item’s value. At the end of the loan period, if you cannot afford to pay the loan plus interest, the pawnshop keeps your item and sells it.
Car loan: If you own your car free and clear, some lenders will make you a loan for a small fraction of what your car is worth. Usually the loan will be for no more than 30 days and will have a very high rate of interest. To get the loan, you must give the lender the title to your vehicle and a set of car keys. The major danger with this kind of loan is that if you miss a loan payment, you risk losing your car. Depending on the loan agreement, one missed payment may be all it takes.