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Six years ago, a woman in Downstate Springfield, Billie Aschmeller, took out a $596 short-term loan that carried a crazy high 304% annual interest rate. Even if she paid back the loan in the two years required by her lender, her total bill would exceed $3,000.
Before long, though, Aschmeller fell behind on other basic expenses, desperately trying to keep up with the loan so as not to lose the title to her car. Eventually, she ended up living in that car.
Aschmeller regrets she ever went the payday and car title loan route, with its usury-high levels of interest, though her intentions to buy a winter coat, crib and car seat for her pregnant daughter were understandable. She is now an outspoken advocate in Illinois for cracking down on a short-term small loan industry that, by any measure, has left millions of Americans like her only poorer and more desperate.