As financial institutions go, payday loan places are about the lowest of the low. They target low-income people by offering short-term cash loans, typically due on the person’s next payday, at ridiculously high interest rates, often skirting local usury laws by a variety of means. Now, a variation on the scheme/scam has come to mobile phones, with loan sharks targeting mobile-happy Nordic youths with SMS spam for short-term, high-interest loans so they can pay their phone bills.
Apparently these people are out of the reach of financial regulators in a dozen EU countries, which sees them charge APRs as high as 1000%, based on a two-week loan at 20% interest. Typically, the cottage industries around mobile are things like phone cases, headsets and other accessories. Perhaps it’s a sign of the pervasiveness of mobile phones into modern culture that they’re spawning less savory elements such as this as well.
[tags]mobile, sms, sms spam, loan sharks[/tags]
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