'Best-buy payday loans?' blog discussion

I think that you should include a guide to these payday loans. Although I'm fortunate enough to have never had to use them myself I can see that there are circumstances where a short term loan could genuinely help somebody out.

I'd argue that the real problem is a lack of education of what taking out a short term loan could mean to someone. Martin has been vocal in lobbying for compulsory financial education in schools and I don't see why that same sentiment shouldn't extend to the wider populace. The real danger in these types of loans is surely due to a lack of understanding of them and by adding an MSE guide to them then Martin is helping educate which must be a good thing.

I'm sure that any guide would come with warnings and alternatives to using them but for situations where they may be the only option it is foolish to bury your head in the sand and not advise people on whatever is the best of a bad bunch. As an additional section, maybe a couple of real-life case studies of how to use pay day loans efficiently and safety and, more importantly, how NOT to use them could be included with the guide.

Would it be possible to do it without having any sort of "League Table"?
E.g. if it was an alphabetic list of the big players with the relevant info going across the page for each one. Not dissimmilar to what you've got here: http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/news/banking/2010/12/bank-charges-pricier-than-paydayloans.

Then you don't get one company who is the "MSE Best Buy" for PayDay loans.
Maybe you could include some of the alternatives in the table so people could see how using a credit card might be better, etc.

How about a 'best-buy loan sharks'? I mean, like drugs, people are going to use them anyway, so it's best to keep potential customers informed... and to push for threats and beatings to be well-regulated.

MSE already have a habit of ranking on figures rather than on facts: e.g. bank X may get ranked higher for some high-paying bond even though actually signing up might involve such hassle and delay that you've lost any bonus over the second best. This doesn't matter too much when you're dealing with saving or with large, long term loans for people who have demonstrated financial stability.

But when you're talking about the kind of person a PDL is targeted at, any comparison is necessarily far more complex. 1000% vs 1200% APR won't matter as much as: what kind of fines if you're a day late? do they make a habit of trying to take payments multiple times, against OFT guidelines? do they ignore what is not in writing?

Anyway, if you're going to go down the route of full, responsible advice, then you need to put PDL at the bottom of the list just before "loan shark". Ask: do you really need it? If it's for an emergency, have you tried a government crisis loan? Otherwise, if it's too small for a high street bank to help you, have you tried a credit union? A government budgeting loan? If it's because you haven't been able to make ends meet, why do you think the solution is short term credit - what are you going to do next month? Create a sufficiently complete "help making ends meet" tool which leads people through the options, not a single page which clueless people will find when they put "which best pay day loan company" in Google.