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I had an old thread on this, but it was before I had left the job to pursue something a little less soul crushing. I'm back with proper content. I have proper stories this time. Real good ones. I'll start with one, but I'd like to give some backstory first. I worked for this company for about two and a half years, eventually being promoted for a little over the last year or so. I started off on the day shift, working your usual 40 hours a week with a lot of overtime during the first week of the month. First few days of each month were especially busy because of social security checks going out, though despite the increase in traffic it was relatively pleasant. After a bit over a year I was promoted to night shift, where I would spend about 10-14 hours a night processing transactions and auditing paperwork. Usually by myself. Company's services included: - Cashing checks - Processing payday loans - Western Union (gently caress WU) - Selling money orders - Notary - Bill payments Overall, the business itself was usually clean and usually in areas that weren't that sketchy. Mine happened to be on the corner of the main street in town, so it was nice watching cars go by at night. While I was on the night shift I often jammed out to music or played my 3DS outside of view from our cameras that were monitored by the district manager and our home office that we could call anytime for assistance and clearance on cashing checks etc. We did have bulletproof glass that we worked behind. Anyway, first story. It was a sunny day on a nice weekend, and I was enjoying a slower afternoon at work. It was just a lead and I, and we helped a man with cashing a large check. He was accompanied by his father, an older man that seemed very focused on whatever the hell he was thinking about. As I was counting out money, I looked to the older man. I noticed his face was bright red, and he was very VERY focused. Suddenly the redness stopped, and he walked out. I counted out the money to the son only for him to inform me that his father had just taken a poo poo on our floor. I laughed, I thought the guy was just being funny. It wasn't until a customer had came in sliding around that I realized the gravity of the situation. Thanks to the last customer that apparently didn't recognize what the gently caress he had just walked in, the poo poo had been smeared all over the floor. I mean, holy gently caress. It's from the door to the counter. As I'm trying to figure out what to do, a woman approaches our door. She demands to be let in to cash her check . I tell her that there's literal poop all over our floor but she is not having it. She forces her way through me BAREFOOT IN THIS poo poo. She slides all over, lecturing me on how I need to keep a cleaner store. My supervisor on duty couldn't believe what was happening. The woman eventually left, climbing into her car covered in poo poo. We called maintenance after to have them clean it. The store remained close for most of the day. Fun topic ideas (but not limited to): - Commonly seen scams - How the business made it's money - Crazy customers - How I visited the bar before going to work - Counterfeit Checks - Money Laundering If anyone has ever been curious about how these stores operate or make their money, feel free to ask. If you're offended at the idea of laughing at customers doing dumb things then this is not the thread for you. It's worth noting that payday loans are bad ideas and I'll never laugh at anyone for getting trapped in the vicious cycle of lending. But I will laugh at someone not listening about poo poo being on the floors. Agoat fucked around with this message at 20:41 on Jan 20, 2018 |
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Jan 20, 2018 12:40
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So I guess a less funny topic but one that makes me wonder: did the CFPB make things more ethical for you, have minimal effect, or sharply curtail your business? Is the potential rollback of the regulations surrounding payday loans likely to result in a large jump in people getting trapped in that cycle?
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Jan 20, 2018 15:39
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What was the criteria you used to determine someone's eligibility for a loan? I'm under the impression that a lot of people who ask for payday loans are either extremely desperate, totally clueless as to how payday loans work and what a bad deal they really are, or just shady individuals who have no intention of repaying the loan. I'll confess I really don't know too much about how these loans work myself, since I've never even thought about taking one. Also, crazy customer stories are always fun. How often did people try to get out of repaying their debts, like telling you they got fired and can't pay or that their employer isn't paying them? What was the shadiest way someone tried to either acquire a loan or get out of repaying their loan?
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Jan 20, 2018 20:26
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mercenarynuker posted:So I guess a less funny topic but one that makes me wonder: did the CFPB make things more ethical for you, have minimal effect, or sharply curtail your business? Is the potential rollback of the regulations surrounding payday loans likely to result in a large jump in people getting trapped in that cycle? Even the less funny stuff is absolutely welcome. The CFPB absolutely made what we did more ethical... Most of the time. We actually had quite a few ways to get out of the lending cycle, including a few different payment plans. If someone came into our branch and said they couldn't pay back their loan we were actually required by the CFPB to allow them to pay back their loan in installments instead of all at once. The trick was we were only required to do this once within a rolling 12 month period. Outside of this, the CFPB is the reason that every payday loan technically can be as long as 31 days, but no longer. I found it odd that we couldn't go beyond that. With all this in mind, people are still really good at signing contracts without reading them. We can give people the tools to get out of lending, but we can't make them do anything. I'm unsure if a rollback of regulation would actually have a large effect at this point. I do believe the CFPB in this case has an effect on how borrowers are treated, but not on the amount of people borrowing, if that makes sense. They do a lot of good but also limit things in odd ways that could help. I hope that answers your question, I do enjoy talking about the legal side as well. It's worth noting the company I worked for got very involved in the community and did a lot of charities to help out. Probably for tax/PR reasons but it's a thing. Vinny the Shark posted:What was the criteria you used to determine someone's eligibility for a loan? I'm under the impression that a lot of people who ask for payday loans are either extremely desperate, totally clueless as to how payday loans work and what a bad deal they really are, or just shady individuals who have no intention of repaying the loan. I'll confess I really don't know too much about how these loans work myself, since I've never even thought about taking one. Our computer system used income as the primary factor. We'd lend between $50 and $500 in increments of $50. It'd look at how stable that income was and how often you were paid. The trick with repayment was that we required a check from a checking account to process the loan. So if they didn't pay, we'd send the check to the bank. If it bounced back, we'd tack on a $25 fee. Our debt collection procedures were fairly tame, we'd call the customer and their references to find out how to contact them. Usually what would happen is they'd come in later for another kind of transaction and would be reminded that they owe us money. We'd set up a payment plan and get the bulk of it up front. I was personally very good at debt collection, though I was very easy on teachers and people just trying to make ends meet. Legally we could take people to court with an arbitrator involved, but I don't believe we did that very often. I rarely would see shady people trying to borrow, they usually had fake checks or counterfeit money instead. I'd happily post about those instead if you want the sketchier side of the business. Money laundering is a HUGE deal since we offered free money orders. We'd often ask the purpose of a transaction and where the money came from, which was pretty standard for any business offering financial services. We required ID for any transaction that was $1,000 and above. On top of this, we can file a Suspicious Activity Report (SAR) on anyone we feel is up to no good. I filed more SARs than anyone at my branch, most customers thought I was the friendliest associate so they assumed they'd get one over me. I'll happily post more on these if you like! Agoat fucked around with this message at 20:51 on Jan 20, 2018 |
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Jan 20, 2018 20:41
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do you feel bad
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Jan 20, 2018 21:47
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Aryu Kiddimeh posted:do you feel bad Not really. It was one of those things that I didn't really understand until I started actually working there. I also helped a lot of people get out of the lending cycle while I was there.
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Jan 20, 2018 21:50
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What were the dumbest reasons people got loans? What were the worst financial situations you saw while you worked there? Also, I'm interested about the standard scams and craziest customers.
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Jan 21, 2018 00:49
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What is the career track like in a payday loan shop and what is tje pay like? I work in bank lending and have had some exposure to payday type loans and I have always wondered if three pay is competitive enough to lure people out of more reputable credit shops or if they are mostly hiring people who don't have any experience working with credit.
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Jan 21, 2018 02:38
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Tomfoolery posted:What were the dumbest reasons people got loans? I'll ask the opposite; was there anyone who actually managed to break the debt cycle and changed their life for the better?
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Jan 21, 2018 04:17
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I want to hear everything about the SAR stuff.
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Jan 21, 2018 04:55
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I'll post a big post when I get home! ETA 1 hour!
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Jan 21, 2018 05:17
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Tomfoolery posted:What were the dumbest reasons people got loans? The dumbest reasons were usually to get some sort of non-essential electronic like the newest iPhone or some game. Without fail, those people trapped themselves every time. The worst situations usually involved people trying to help their families. It wasn't uncommon to see a fellow 20-something trying to support his family that refuses to work or whatever. It was heartbreaking. Sic Semper Goon posted:I'll ask the opposite; was there anyone who actually managed to break the debt cycle and changed their life for the better? Absolutely. Usually involved a payment plan or purposefully bouncing a check so that they don't have to pay all at once, but it happened plenty. It's not unbeatable, but you're gonna have to save cash or get ballsy. There were a lot of people around my age that I'd lecture about borrowing. One guy found me at a bar after I had helped him. He bought me a drink.  therobit posted:What is the career track like in a payday loan shop and what is tje pay like? I work in bank lending and have had some exposure to payday type loans and I have always wondered if three pay is competitive enough to lure people out of more reputable credit shops or if they are mostly hiring people who don't have any experience working with credit. With my company the traditional route would be Associate -> Lead -> Assistant Manager -> Branch Manager then it's go to corporate from there unless you became district manager. I went Associate -> Overnight Manager which was largely unheard of. Being a lead never made sense, it was a tiny raise. The company I worked for had roughly the same pay as a bank (slightly more?), though I don't think I ever saw someone leave their bank job for the payday loan place. The scheduling sucked real bad, too. After being overnight for a year I left to work insurance. Office work feels cozy after working at a payday loan business. Tomfoolery posted:Also, I'm interested about the standard scams and craziest customers. You know that Nigerian prince scam? People fall for it more than you'd think. They also fall for job postings/invitations for assistant work, usually they get a large check and are asked to cash it. From there, they're instructed to wire back most of the cash and keep the leftovers. 99% of our "scam" transactions were like this, and you'd often be able to tell before they even approached the counter. Counterfeit checks look BAD. Like, obviously bad. (Protip: If it says "Official Check", it's counterfeit.) We'd also get stolen checks on occasion, usually someone would grab a blank check out of a check book and try to cash it. We would simply ask what the check was for and it'd be easy to figure out. Even if they're calm and give a good answer, we'd often call check makers if we didn't have a history with them already. You haven't lived until you've seen a thief panic over you having his ID behind bullet proof glass. It's worth noting I loved loving with people trying to actually break the law. Innocent people caught up in a mess usually got a lecture on not falling for obvious scams. One of my favorite interactions was on the 3rd of the month: our busiest day. A gentleman came over to my window and placed a bright green bag on the counter. I never thought anything of it. He asked me if we had him in our system. He said he didn't have his ID, which was fine. Often I'd get the customer's SSN or some other key information to verify. He began to sweat a bit when I asked for this information, so I asked if he was okay. Turns out he was losing his mind. He dumped his green bag of apparently loving IDs from every state and shouted for me to "get his god drat information out of our loving corporate system before he calls the police". I'm about to laugh my rear end off. I can handle angry customers but holy poo poo. My manager ran him out just in time for me to start laughing my rear end off. The other customers were very concerned since I had just been yelled at, but we made light of it all and continued as if nothing had happened. (Sans me giggling like an idiot) Bonus: Apparently another night shift manager caught a guy beating off at the ATM at one point. GreyjoyBastard posted:I want to hear everything about the SAR stuff. Whenever something sketchy happens at a financial institution, they're required to file a Suspicious Activity Report. This is for counterfeit checks, wire scams, even people buying money orders in amounts that don't make sense (at least with us). If you've ever concerned someone at a bank, you may have a SAR filed on you. Some institutions have a "better safe than sorry" policy towards these things in that it's better to file one and have it be nothing than to not file one and get in big trouble. Usually there's a dollar amount that serves as a cutoff point. It's illegal to tell someone you've filed a SAR on them as well. Is there anything in particular you wanted to know? SARs themselves are just filing paperwork on potentially illegal activity.
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Jan 21, 2018 07:46
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Agoat posted:
Failing at decency, sex and banking all at the same time.
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Jan 21, 2018 15:15
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Agoat posted:
I used to work for Wells Fargo, and we'd file a SAR if someone was obviously trying to get around banking laws. Cash withdrawals over $10,000 need paperwork filled with the Treasury Department, so a lot of people would make withdrawals for $9,990. Or they would deposit a check for $9k after claiming they sold a ATV, then come back again that week and say the same thing. Wells Fargo was relatively trigger-happy with filing SARs. Even mentioning countries like Palestine or Mexico during a transaction would be enough to get a SAR filed.
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Jan 21, 2018 18:49
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Horrible Lurkbeast posted:Failing at decency, sex and banking all at the same time. They just couldn't handle his deposit.
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Jan 21, 2018 19:09
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BigDave posted:I used to work for Wells Fargo, and we'd file a SAR if someone was obviously trying to get around banking laws. Cash withdrawals over $10,000 need paperwork filled with the Treasury Department, so a lot of people would make withdrawals for $9,990. Or they would deposit a check for $9k after claiming they sold a ATV, then come back again that week and say the same thing. Dodging reporting thresholds would have us filing, too. Generally speaking for us if we thought it was sketchy, we'd file regardless of amount.
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Jan 21, 2018 21:52
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Agoat posted:
Every story you have ever experienced or heard of.  especially
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Jan 22, 2018 00:38
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GreyjoyBastard posted:Every story you have ever experienced or heard of. I had a wire transfer to I think Yemen once? At the time it was a country that we had been warned about sending money to. Calling for assistance had home office thinking I was a horrible racist and that I was trying to mistreat a customer. 
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Jan 22, 2018 11:23
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Awesome idea for a thread. I'll be bookmarking it for later.
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Jan 22, 2018 13:00
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Nocheez posted:Awesome idea for a thread. I'll be bookmarking it for later. I hope you enjoy reading through it! I had a woman come to my window once to cash a check. She needed her ID, and apparently kept it in her bra. She lifted one massive titty out only to realize it was in her other titty. This woman, no joke, lifts her titties out and finds an ID tucked underneath. She places it through the window and it was dripping in what looked like a weird grease. I look up at her, confused at what the gently caress I was looking at. Her only response was "Y'all got cameras?". I didn't cash her check.
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Jan 22, 2018 14:32
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Agoat posted:I hope you enjoy reading through it! 
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Jan 22, 2018 19:10
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Once I figured out how screwed these people were getting, I'm not sure I could return to work. Irrespective if I was able to help one or two. 
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Jan 22, 2018 19:38
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Hey op this is pretty interesting stuff and you should repost this in GBS to get more eyes on it.
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Jan 22, 2018 21:58
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bradzilla posted:Hey op this is pretty interesting stuff and you should repost this in GBS to get more eyes on it. I’m amazed at the low amount of new threads in AT and PYF. I guess they’ve all been done ✅
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Jan 22, 2018 23:32
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Should I get a payday loan to buy bitcoins
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Jan 23, 2018 01:21
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Number Two Stunna posted:Should I get a payday loan to buy bitcoins Yes. Always yes. Buy the dip!! 
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Jan 23, 2018 03:43
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Great topic idea! Could you expand on the topic of how your business made money?
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Jan 23, 2018 06:21
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I used to work at a bank and we would get phone calls from payday loan places all the time asking us to verify things like direct deposit, balances and number of NSFs. It was always the same routine. They would call, explain what they needed and then put the client on the line, we would verify their ID and then tell the person on the other end everything they needed to know. Did you ever have to do this? Or is that stuff only reserved for the people that throw up a lot of red flags?
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Jan 26, 2018 01:35
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Sorry for the late reply! I started training at my new job this week. Burt Sexual posted:Once I figured out how screwed these people were getting, I'm not sure I could return to work. Irrespective if I was able to help one or two. I was in a different place then. Admittedly I didn't treat people very well outside of work either. I've spent my time since leaving working on being better. bradzilla posted:Hey op this is pretty interesting stuff and you should repost this in GBS to get more eyes on it. If a mod gives the OK I could do this over the weekend. I'll post if that happens! Number Two Stunna posted:Should I get a payday loan to buy bitcoins Since you're already screwed you might as well! Hyrax Attack! posted:Great topic idea! Could you expand on the topic of how your business made money? Sure. When you take out a loan you pay back 10% extra. (Plus a $1 state fee but we'll ignore that for the sake of simplicity.) At most you could borrow $500, so you'd pay back $550 on your next payday. This would make the company $50 on that loan. The issue is now people are out that $550 and are now broke until the next payday. So they borrow again. And again. You can borrow lesser amounts, but people never do. We'd sell free money orders and offer bill processing services to bring in business. Also Western Union! gently caress them. We never made money from them and they're difficult as poo poo. Slowpoke! posted:I used to work at a bank and we would get phone calls from payday loan places all the time asking us to verify things like direct deposit, balances and number of NSFs. It was always the same routine. They would call, explain what they needed and then put the client on the line, we would verify their ID and then tell the person on the other end everything they needed to know. I did! Usually to verify if a check cleared so that the customer could borrow again but we'd also call to see if a check would clear. We'd also use the automated menus to see if checks would clear for check redeposits. It was a pain in the rear end.
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Jan 26, 2018 21:08
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It sounds like a lot of dumb people use your loans to get themselves into financial trouble. Do you think your customers are better off generally for having taken a payday loan?
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Jan 28, 2018 02:58
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Number Two Stunna posted:It sounds like a lot of dumb people use your loans to get themselves into financial trouble. Do you think your customers are better off generally for having taken a payday loan? Not OP, but I have worked in banking for a long time. Payday loan borrowers generally have lovely credit and either a lower income or a high existing debt to income ratio, which is why they don't qualify for traditional financing. These people can't get credit anywhere else and have already exhausted all other options. Despite this fact, they still have legitimate emergencies in thier life that require access to credit. Maybe thier car breaks down and they need to fix it, or maybe they get hurt and need to go to the doctor. Payday loans really suck but it would stuck even more to lose your job because you can't make it to work due to your car not working. So the answer is that it depends.
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Jan 28, 2018 04:04
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The issue is that they usually borrow way too much. I've seen people that need $100 borrow $500 just because it's there. I've seen people use payday loans for real emergencies and get out of a jam, but this is uncommon at best. Most of our business involved repeat customers.
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Jan 28, 2018 09:44
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I’m interested in “gently caress Western Union” because even though I’m in a totally different department that never does sales we still had to watch a training video that boiled down to WU assumes there will be criminal activity. I can’t even recall if they refuse the sale or just record/report it the way you described upthread.
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Jan 28, 2018 17:18
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SUPERMAN'S GAL PAL posted:I’m interested in “gently caress Western Union” because even though I’m in a totally different department that never does sales we still had to watch a training video that boiled down to WU assumes there will be criminal activity. I can’t even recall if they refuse the sale or just record/report it the way you described upthread. Their software was horrible, their agent support was dumpster tier and their customers were entitled pricks. On top of that they never made us any money. And there was always tons of criminal activity, I filed tons of SARs on WU transactions, more than anything else. I will never do anything for them ever again.
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Jan 28, 2018 20:21
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therobit posted:Not OP, but I have worked in banking for a long time. Payday loan borrowers generally have lovely credit and either a lower income or a high existing debt to income ratio, which is why they don't qualify for traditional financing. These people can't get credit anywhere else and have already exhausted all other options. This is pretty much the rationale I've heard for pawn shops as well. It is grey to say the least, but even people with poo poo credit need money sometimes. We just need to do a better job of regulating these things so they aren't a trap into perpetual usurous lending. Which credit cards are too if we're being honest.
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Jan 28, 2018 22:50
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Not OP, not answering anything, but I got sucked into the payday loan bit for awhile. It's a trainwreck trying to get back out of that cycle, and I'm really glad I finally escaped. I wound up with someone chasing me for several years since I walked away from an online payday loan (and a random skip tracer will find me and harass me about it once a year or so), but the SOL expired on that around 10 years ago. Never had anything against the front line people, but I had one place ban me for paying a loan off early (they had a "48 hour satisfaction guarantee" where you could pay off the loan early with no interest or fees ["return the loan"], I did that once, got "banned for life" from ever using any of their services... 15 years later and no regerts over paying them early). IRQ posted:This is pretty much the rationale I've heard for pawn shops as well. It is grey to say the least, but even people with poo poo credit need money sometimes. We just need to do a better job of regulating these things so they aren't a trap into perpetual usurous lending. Which credit cards are too if we're being honest. I've used pawn shops in the past too. There's only one that I've felt has been fair with me (still an expensive loan, but it's a family owned and run shop that takes some serious pride in their business... and customer service). randomidiot fucked around with this message at 10:45 on Jan 30, 2018 |
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Jan 30, 2018 10:41
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