ACCOUNTANT BY DAY

A middle-aged man came into the store and said approximately, “Hello. I have NO IDEA how payday loans work, because I’ve definitely NEVER had one before. Can I have one, and will you explain every detail of how it works? Since I’ve never had one before.”

“Ah, I’ll probably be able to help you out, sir,” I said, suspicious already because of his weird self-introduction, and also, he looked familiar. I gave him a copy of the application and took his ID and personal check into the back of the store.

When I went to enter his information in the computer I discovered that he had defaulted on a first time payday loan with our store about six months earlier, and that the check had been sent back with a stop payment at the time and our collection efforts had been unsuccessful because he had provided bogus contact information. It seemed that he looked familiar because I was the one who had signed him up initially and given him the loan. When I told him that I couldn’t offer him another loan because of this, his jaw dropped in shock and he demanded to know how this could be, couldn’t possibly have been him, no way, never been here in his whole life, etc, etc, etc.

“Are you sure that’s correct, sir?” I showed him the file I’d brought up to the front of the store, with the photocopy of the check he’d written for the other loan. Aside from the check number, the two were identical.

“It’s a forgery,” he declared. “I’m not paying for that. You can’t make me pay for something that someone else did,” he told me confidently.

I turned the computer monitor around so he could see the picture that I had taken of him six months ago. It was well-lit, and looked just like him. We always tell the customers that we take the pictures to “protect you from identity theft”, but it’s really because then people have a harder time saying that they weren’t the one who made the loan.

“Well, I was the one who signed you up last time, sir,” I explained. “And this is the picture I took last time when I gave you that loan,” I said, pointing to the picture.

“Gimme that back,” he snarled, pointing to his ID. “I’m never paying you!” he told me dramatically, tearing his application in half and shoving the pieces into my cash tray.

What, did he think we just magically forgot that he wrote a check and stopped payment, even though we took his picture at the time? What a fool to think we are the stupids instead of him!