this post was submitted on 13 Jan 2025
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A Boring Dystopia

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[–] Etterra@discuss.online 5 points 10 hours ago

I'm not sure if she's laughing hysterically or crying.

[–] Snowclone@lemmy.world 8 points 12 hours ago

If anyone is curious this is the process

  1. Be fucked
  2. Payday loan
  3. Payday
  4. 600% are you fucking kidding me?
  5. What's the minimum?
  6. I'll pay this the rest of my life I guess
  7. Be fucked by high interest loan
  8. Beg for money from family, friends, co-workers
  9. Thank God now I'm back to zero
  10. Still exactly as fucked as before

The Old Poor standard method

  1. Be Fucked
  2. Beg for money from family, friends, co-workers, new GF, new GF's roommate, A dog owner you met at a dog park, Mormon missionaries, your landlord, your landlords ugly kid, your cousin, total strangers after you pretend you have the same name as them and act just JAZZED about it, anyone you suspect is sexually attracted to you, your nanna's bridge group, other poor people, the homeless, people who speak the same language you do and are having a celebration at a public park after you convince them your ''John's Kid'' or ''Tia Marta's thursday church preacher'' literally anyone.
  3. Somehow still exactly as fucked as before but now you feel HELLA GUILT, because Tia Marta made you go to church on thursday and the preacher is very convincing. But at least you can't be LEGALLY obligated to pay a loan shark money, and you saved a lot of time.
[–] ArchRecord@lemm.ee 4 points 12 hours ago

For anybody wondering what the cost is to using their service, this quote from their website about sums it up:

Credit Genie charges a recurring fee of $4.99 per month or $3.49 biweekly to maintain a user's bank account connection. Paying the bank connection fee does not guarantee approval for a Cash Advance.

So essentially, if you're borrowing from them, you'll pay $60/yr in fees if you can afford $5 a month, or, more likely if you're in the kind of financial situation where you're having to take out $100 micro-loans because your bank balance is consistently hitting zero, you'll get stuck with the $3.49 biweekly option that I'm sure they totally don't heavily push you towards. That's $90/yr.

You get charged the fee whether or not you borrow from them at all, and what do you want to bet they do nothing to notify inactive users of their recurring charges?

[–] SatansMaggotyCumFart@lemmy.world 50 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Now you too can easily make a ten dollar coffee cost twenty!

[–] T00l_shed@lemmy.world 18 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Wow a 100% interest rate? What a bargain!

[–] Maggoty@lemmy.world 23 points 1 day ago (1 children)

For short term loans? You'd be so lucky to have it just double.

[–] Droechai@lemm.ee 3 points 20 hours ago

It's probably only 25% if paid back within 24hours

[–] MolecularCactus1324@lemmy.world 39 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

drained my bank account, maxed my credit cards, but credit genie was there to help me take on more short term debt.

[–] y0kai@lemmy.dbzer0.com 41 points 1 day ago (2 children)

I thought I was being advertised to on Lemmy despite my various ad blockers and was furious for about 10 seconds lmao

[–] JcbAzPx@lemmy.world 20 points 1 day ago (2 children)
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[–] Binette@lemmy.ml 14 points 1 day ago

Glad I'm not the only one getting mad when I see/hear an add now 😭

[–] HawlSera@lemm.ee 37 points 1 day ago (2 children)

This will be the new normal if we don't stop Capitalism now.

A world where you own nothing, and are expected to survive based solely on a debt that you are expected to pay back but it's an open secret that you never will.

[–] ByteOnBikes@slrpnk.net 19 points 1 day ago (3 children)

My first taste of pure evil capitalism was when my fast food job in college was forcing everyone to switch to getting a "cash card" rather than a check. That card had a $0.25 fee every time you used it.

I don't know if it still exists or if sane politicians told companies that shit was illegal.

[–] logos@sh.itjust.works 13 points 1 day ago (1 children)

They're trying to go back to the 1800s. The giant, old, textile factory near where I live had dorms where the workers would live on premises and were paid in script for the stores owned by the factory. Like coal villages. They converted them into luxury loft apartments now.

🎶You load sixteen tons, what do you get? Another day older and deeper in debt. Saint Peter don't you call me, 'cause I can't go. I owe my soul to the company store.🎶

[–] Maggoty@lemmy.world 6 points 1 day ago

Still exists. We took out the middle man between the payday loan people and the minimum wage employees. Private sector efficiency in action!

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[–] Phoenicianpirate@lemm.ee 28 points 1 day ago (1 children)
[–] ByteOnBikes@slrpnk.net 22 points 1 day ago

Why? She needed a latte, and because she suffers from poor choices, she can now get a $8 latte that will cost $219 to pay back!

[–] morgunkorn@discuss.tchncs.de 176 points 2 days ago (4 children)

awesome, that will go nicely with my 6-month financing for last week's Papa Joe's pizza

[–] frunch@lemmy.world 32 points 2 days ago (3 children)

Considering i don't plan on retiring, this is fine -- i will leave as much debt as possible in my wake when i move onto the great gig in the sky 😇

[–] Viking_Hippie@lemmy.dbzer0.com 20 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

Except for the fact that you'll eventually have everything you own taken away AND be put in jail.

Debtors prison called debtor's prison might be illegal, but tons of de facto debtors prisons that de jure go by other names are becoming the standard way for US local and state governments to punish people for existing while poor.

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[–] veroxii@aussie.zone 23 points 2 days ago (3 children)

By next week you should be able to roll that over and get a second mortgage secured against the first pizza for a new pizza.

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[–] Rentlar@lemmy.ca 55 points 1 day ago (7 children)

Sponsored Lemmy Comment: Hungry for a can of beans? Sign up now and get $100 of debt in minutes!

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[–] Blackmist@feddit.uk 94 points 2 days ago (3 children)

Payday loans making a comeback, eh?

And because they don't appear on your credit check you can take a dozen out from different companies! What could possibly go wrong?

[–] TheFriar@lemm.ee 46 points 2 days ago

They’ve been here to stay. They just yassified them and are now aiming them at a different demographic. They’re trying—against all logic—to gentrify poverty traps. Welcome to the future.

[–] Viking_Hippie@lemmy.dbzer0.com 55 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Payday loans making a comeback, eh?

They never left. The financial vultures just keep renaming them and finding other loopholes to skirt regulations and keep trapping victims in their endless debt spirals.

[–] Blackmist@feddit.uk 23 points 2 days ago (6 children)

It tends to move around from scam to scam.

A lot of the payday loan companies seemed to disappear in the UK. The main one was Wonga, which went under after we made it so that companies lending money would have to pay compensation if they lent money to people who would be unlikely to be able to repay it.

Then there was places like BrightHouse which specialised in selling basic household items to poor people with a 99% APR on them. So that £300 washing machine ends up costing over £1000 by the time they own it.

The current one is places like Klarna, which is a buy now pay later system. Popular because it doesn't charge any interest (most of the money comes in fees from the retailers) and they don't put it on your credit history, but miss a payment and they'll be on you like a ton of bricks.

It's just the same thing over and over, which a slight change to skirt any new regulations. It's still the same cash flow problems underlying it all.

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[–] iAvicenna@lemmy.world 17 points 1 day ago

phew crisis averted

[–] AngryRobot@lemmy.world 26 points 1 day ago

Gotta keep the wage slaves in debt so there's no upward mobility.

[–] robocall@lemmy.world 99 points 2 days ago (6 children)

I wish Reddit wouldn't disable comments under ad-posts. Such a shitty website and so happy I left it for Lemmy.

[–] itsathursday@lemmy.world 51 points 2 days ago (4 children)

Same thing with YouTube. I wish I could vent to the people responsible for putting rubbish in front of me. They deserve to hear my opinion as much as they think they have the right to serve me that ad.

[–] Diplomjodler3@lemmy.world 31 points 2 days ago

They know exactly what they're doing and they absolutely don't give a flying fuck about what you or I think of it.

[–] sturlabragason@lemmy.world 21 points 2 days ago

You’ve discovered the reason why comments are disabled 😅

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[–] doingthestuff@lemy.lol 19 points 2 days ago (1 children)

I think ads on the internet should only be allowed if they allow comments, with extremely limited moderation capabilities so that they can't just delete all the comments they don't like.

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[–] HowManyNimons@lemmy.world 32 points 1 day ago (3 children)
[–] lemmydividebyzero@reddthat.com 40 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Yeah. Probably, she read the terms and conditions.

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[–] Lemminary@lemmy.world 52 points 2 days ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (7 children)

I'm immediately wary of anything involving credit that I didn't seriously consider or plan for. I can't imagine going into debt because I'd rather drink coffee at Starbucks than at home.

[–] Anamnesis@lemmy.world 21 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Do you mean wary or does it make you tired?

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[–] SirQuackTheDuck@lemmy.world 29 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

So now they're getting free organic marketing by being a shitty ad? Reacting the brand would be better.

[–] samus12345@lemm.ee 12 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

u/CreditgenieApp Promoted

Ewwww! So glad I had somewhere else to go after dumping that place!

[–] randon31415@lemmy.world 13 points 1 day ago (8 children)

Did... did they just reinvent credit cards from first principles? Just without the card?

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[–] HubertManne@moist.catsweat.com 13 points 1 day ago (3 children)

remember the pay over time pizza thing?

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So glad I don’t use Reddit

[–] Classy@sh.itjust.works 4 points 1 day ago

Brb, I'm gonna take one of these out and apply to Caleb Hammer

[–] tvarog_smetana@lemm.ee 11 points 1 day ago

I wonder how they interact with regulations of the payday loan industry.

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