Unwanted Commercial Messages

Posted by on Jun 27, 2006 in Pitfalls

Unwanted Commercial Messages

Unwanted commercial messages are one side-effect of using unethical payday loan sites.

After signing up for a payday loan, some people experience a sudden increase in unsolicited bulk e-mail (UBE or ‘spam’) and tele-marketing calls.

Not surprisingly, many of these messages are about debt consolidation, credit cards and other financial services.

There are, however, a few things you can do to minimize the risk…

Why do payday lenders demand so much information?

When you apply for a payday loan, you give up a lot of personal information including contact information and financial details. This is unavoidable when using this kind of loan. Since you are not securing your loan with physical property (house, car, etc.), your employment becomes your security. Lenders need to determine that you are who you say you are and that you are really employed.

If giving out so much personal information online bothers you (and it should), please consider a payday loan alternative.

How does this lead to an increase in spam and tele-marketing calls?

This personal information is very valuable. It can be sold for a high price. Data mining companies will buy it and sell it to companies who do targeted marketing. These marketing companies can then use it to tailor advertising messages specifically to you. Since your information came from a payday loan company, they know you are suffering financial difficulties and will target you with financing-related messages via e-mail (spam), direct mail (junk mail) or tele-marketing calls at dinner time.

Ethical lenders will not sell this information because having you bombarded with competitor advertising or approached by another payday lender does not help them. It increases the chances you will look elsewhere for your financial needs.

Unethical lenders will sell it and resell it to anyone.

How can I protect myself?

The only sure solution is to consider a payday loan alternative. If you have no other alternative, however, you can start by dealing with actual lenders rather than publisher/affiliate sites.

Some things to look for when considering an online cash advance website:

AVOID payday loan sites that:

  • require you to fill in an application before revealing fees, speed or APR
  • are ‘mystery meat’ lenders
  • engage in unethical online behavior (search engine spamming, browser hijacks, etc.)
  • steal testimonials (or other content) from competing sites

AVOID payday lenders who do NOT disclose:

  • APR (usually the sign of an unethical lender)
  • physical address
  • phone number
  • full company name

These are the signs of publisher/affiliate sites, not actual lenders. In many cases, publisher/affiliate payday loan sites are simply personal information harvesters in disguise.

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