Emergency Cash from Short Term Loans?
Let’s get straight into the nitty gritty and answer the question straight out – ‘can you use your short term loan as emergency cash?’ Yes, of course you can. You can use your loan for almost any legal purpose you desire. Let’s face it, who’s going to be asking how you spent the money and we’ve never heard of anyone being asked to provide receipts for the spending from their loan.
It’s a different story though depending on what you say the money is for on your application form. Different answers will have different credit scores, no doubt and some will be higher than others. It may not be the best idea when trying for a loan to make repeated applications for ‘consolidation loans’. These are loans whose primary purpose is to lump all your debt in one basket. You then pay it off with one monthly payment which should theoretically be lower than paying them individually. One consolidation loan every 5 or 10 years won’t raise any eyebrows. Try and take one out on a yearly basis and you might find yourself being dropped faster than a hot potato.
What’s In a Name?
Do you ever feel like the moment you get your bearings on the world around you it shifts and changes? One minute, something you’ve known and understood for months or years suddenly seems to have undergone an overnight makeover. The same is true in the lending world, we are all connected one way or another so no reason it shouldn’t. Yesterday, you couldn’t move without bumping into an advert for ‘payday loans’ and today you can’t find them for love nor money (no allusion intended). Well, never fear the Badger is here and we know exactly where they’ve gone – nowhere!
When we started this business a couple of years ago, we spent some time looking at where the competition was advertising and making their presence felt. Something that stuck out like a sore thumb was the lack of any presence on social media. This was down to 2 reasons we could think of.
One was that having a hands-on government regulator like the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) meant that whoever was running the social media channel had to be super careful with what they wrote. One fine could spell the end of their business. Therefore it seemed imperative to NOT engage with the general public for fear of being drawn into either a conversation or argument which could spectacularly backfire.
Let’s Get Engaged!
The main problem with this hands-off approach to social media (SM) meant that they were potentially losing customers. Though as mostly everyone was in the same boat a sense of parity could be felt. The other problem though was that SM is supposed to be the most effective method of engaging with customers. The search engines reward this by increasing rank to the engaged. No engagement = less rank.
As more and more direct lenders and brokers tried the move into social media something else became apparent too. The SM companies, much like the mainstream media, had decided that lending money for the short term at a higher than average rate of interest was now deemed toxic. We broadly agree but the SM companies went further and barred any use of the word ‘payday’ in any advert or on any website.
So now if you browse through your social media channel, whichever one it is and let’s face it they are now but different faces of the same animal, you will not come across one single mention of the words ‘payday loans’. Where have they gone – nowhere. They are now called ‘short term loans.’
Closer To The Truth
We like this rebranding of the ‘toxic’ name and feel it better represents what’s actually being sold or arranged. Payday loans were originally intended to be repaid in one lump sum. That day being at the end of the month. This quickly morphed into payday loans being for 2 months, then 3. Before you knew it a payday loan was for any loan up to a year and under £1,000 having an APR of over 1,000%.
Welcome to the party, ‘short term loans’.
The king is dead. Long live the king. Or to put it in French – plus ca change, plus c’est la meme chose. Apologies for the lack of accents and the squiggly thing under the c.
We hope this helps.
