Broke USA, Cleveland, Tennessee

Kicking Up a Sh*tstorm in Cleveland, Tenn. | Gary Rivlin:

'via Blog this'



"In 1995, Check Into Cash generated nearly $1 million in pretax profits on $3.7 million in fees, operating stores in Tennessee, Kentucky, and Indiana."

"Jones, 57, stands maybe five foot eight. He's bald with a full beard, and resembles the director Rob Reiner, minus the liberal politics. He still lives in his hometown of Cleveland (pop. 37,000). On our first of two full days together, he wore scuffed cowboy boots and a monogrammed white dress shirt with his belly hung over frayed jeans like a proud accessory. He personally clears $20 million a year from the payday business."

......http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/10_22/b4180056325806.htm

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...they were taped had to be.still cant beleve he said those things awful

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Mr. Rivkin, I had the great misfortune to have been working with W. Allan Jones at Check Into Cash at the time of your visit.  It may surprise and amuse you to know that W. Allan Jones was deeply surprised that your portrayal of him was unflattering.  Hard to believe, I know.  You did a great job accurately depicting the culture at Check Into Cash in Cleveland, Tennessee and the bloated greed and extreme arrogance of W. Allan Jones.  

Paythepiper • 2 years ago

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Nice job, Gary Rivlin, for exposing these payday lenders for who they really are, especially W. Allan Jones and Check Into Cash.  Broke USA is a great read, by the way.

"A scathing, important book"

-Joe Nocera, The New York Times

"[a] superb expose of the 'poverty business'"

– Publishers Weekly

"...researching the poverty industry, I ventured to Las Vegas to hang out at the annual check cashers convention, I spent time in Tennessee with the small-town debt collector who founded the $40-billion-a-year payday cash advance industry, I met with a number of mercenary entrepreneurs who are getting tens of millions of dollars rich selling high-priced products to the country's hardworking waitresses, warehouse workers, and mall clerks."

http://garyrivlin.com/books/broke-usa/

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"The strangest  development of the week, though, was becoming semi-famous in Cleveland, Tenn. I had spent the better part of a week in Cleveland at the start of 2009 for research on my book, including two days with Allan Jones, the founder of the modern-day payday industry."
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"Studies show that the typical payday customer has a household income of about $30,000 a year.  Only a guy who spends money like Jones (read the HuffPo piece or click on this link to his home while it was still under construction)  would be so clueless as to sum up as "middle class" someone earning $30,000 a year and so desperate for quick cash they'd be willing to pay fees that work out to an annual interest rate of 390 percent."