Just thought the history of his loan and payments were kind of interesting.
He borrowed $100 promising to pay back $120.
He paid $100 in interest, yet still owes more than he borrowed.
...
Doesn't that seem kind of predatory? I mean, I get it, free market, interest adds up, extensions taken... But for some reason I thought you were Muslim. This can't be halal.
Very interesting, I had never stopped to do the numbers like that, and once you've laid it out it doesn't seem so strange the default. Although being honest, by paying back $100 on the $100 borrowed, even if sashan had been more lenients, the borrower would still be short of paying interest. But probably, seeing that when paying penalties for extensions, the principal did not go down is at least one of the reasons for the default.
Where I live, those interest rates wouldn't be allowed because the "free market" indeed leads to predatory interest rates.
Yes and no. In most of the developed world the interest charged here is prohibited, I myself have commented on it more than once. People don't mind paying $1 interest on a $20 loan for two weeks because they think it's only $1, but if you think about it in terms of APR it's 130%. I think the inability to think in percentage terms is one of the causes of people's impoverishment.
But where do you see the free market when the activity that sashan is doing is basically forbidden, even if it escapes the eyes of the authorities by taking place in this corner of the internet.
I believe most people would be better off without taking high interest short-term loans, and this loan service has destroyed many accounts by now.
On this we agree and we have commented several times in threads of this style, but I am far from thinking that the borrowers are poor victims of the circumstances they have been forced to borrow and that the evil sashan has destroyed them. I think it is basically the opposite: the defaulters in most cases are gamblers, cheaters, dishonest people who in many cases have planned to default beforehand taking advantage of him.