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> The spam fax felt like a gift from God.

Did you ever think you would read such a sentence - and that it would be real?

> The advance turned out to be for $36,762, repaid in $800 daily debits from their bank account starting the day after they got the money. This would continue for about three months, until they’d repaid $59,960, amounting to an annualized interest rate of more than 350 percent. A small price to pay, Doug figured—soon he’d have all the money he needed in cheaper, longer-term debt.

totally speechless. $800 in DAILY payments, at 350% interest, for a TRYOUT loan that he didn't even need, in order to get a bigger loan of $800K. FROM A SPAM FAX. And to top it off - they didn't talk to their lawyer, or (i assume) accountant.

> Jerry Bush, who ran a plumbing business with his father in Roanoke, Va., signed confessions for at least six cash advances from companies including Yellowstone, taking one loan after another as his payments mounted to $18,000 a day.

A day! how could any small business handle that?

This is just heartbreaking. While these were horrible (or desperate) financial decisions - it's not their fault for being victims. This is what laws and regulations are for. We can and will eventually stop this from happening. I think this being a series of stories will help give it the spotlight it needs.



Sounds kind of like that plumber got himself into a hole, realized there is no way he could get out of it, and decided fuck these guys and took out every loan he could before he would be forced to declare bankruptcy regardless. I can't really blame him after he already got into a hole, hopefully he stashed a bunch of the value do after things blow over.


One thing to consider - taking six loans like this is called stacking, and is expressly forbidden in merchant contracts and on the phone when dealing with any SMB lender. In most cases the person taking the loan lies to each lender that they don't have any other loans out. It's a huge cause of defaults, and it doesn't come from borrower innocence.


>Bush’s contracts with Yellowstone show that the company advanced him a total of about $250,000 and that he paid them back more than $600,000.

how do people get tricked into agreeing to terms like this


They aren't tricked, they are desperate.




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