Whatever philosophical complaints you have about the check cashing business, CashNetUSA was a well run, professional business with great technology.
I interviewed at CashNetUSA last year. It was the second most-appealing job I've ever been offered (I interviewed for my current job, the most appealing, at the same time so I didn't end up working there). They had a great tech team, extremely smart and experienced guys. They employed 400 people (mostly call-center reps) and paid well (not sure how they're doing post-bust). They sponsored and hosted meetings for the Chicago Lisp User Group when we were active.
Site in RoR, they programmed their own call center using Asterisk, self-managed Linux infrastructure, quants generating real-time risk assessments for customers to determine individualized rates, etc.
I received a call from a recruiter last summer. It was about flying to Chicago to interview with Cash America. They needed a director of IT and had a lot of RoR stuff on hand.
I politely made myself unavailable.
Maybe its because I spent a decade, the 90s, building financial apps at large banks and insurance companies. Like so many other IT guys, I know I had a hand in building some of the machinery that has destroyed America and those that trusted it.
But even if you had never worked on the inside of Wall St. firms, you should be able to spot a crack dealer when you see one (what do you think those call center reps were doing?). I don't care if they are using Linux and pay well. There is a reasons usury laws exist. The same reasons drug laws exist...usury and drugs both eat at the bottom of society and destroy it.
I'm going to have to completely disagree. Sure these loans are pretty bad, but if you need cash at a moments notice and have no other options it can be better than not having it. As for drug laws, you are very misinformed -- I don't want to get into a long debate, but US drug policy is horrible and in fact harms the bottom of society.
Sure these loans are pretty bad, but if you need cash at a moments notice and have no other options it can be better than not having it
People who use these services frequently get dependent on them, and not out of necessity. That's a big part of why credit and loan industries have been growing so much for the past decade; people want fast cash once or twice and get stuck in the cycle.
Until recently a company in the debt collection industry I'm very familiar with was giving advances on paychecks to certain employees. The practice was recently stopped when the head of HR left and the result was basically analogous forcing people to get off a drug. It's not like they didn't have income, they just got locked into a cycle of dependency. The kicker: most of the employees in this company who were hooked on the paycheck advances are collectors themselves, dealing all day with other people dependent on debt.
I interviewed at CashNetUSA last year. It was the second most-appealing job I've ever been offered (I interviewed for my current job, the most appealing, at the same time so I didn't end up working there). They had a great tech team, extremely smart and experienced guys. They employed 400 people (mostly call-center reps) and paid well (not sure how they're doing post-bust). They sponsored and hosted meetings for the Chicago Lisp User Group when we were active.
Site in RoR, they programmed their own call center using Asterisk, self-managed Linux infrastructure, quants generating real-time risk assessments for customers to determine individualized rates, etc.