Instead of evaluating risk in order to block loans to people who couldn't pay the loan back, the payday loan industry tries to find poor, desperate people, dangles loans in front of them, and then traps them into a cycle that drains them of everything.

The "debt trap" is the actual business model, and they say so.

One payday loan CEO said of their "customers": "The theory in the business is [that] you've got to get that customer in, work to turn him into a repetitive customer, long-term customer, because that's really where the profitability is."

Another payday lender even put out a training manual for new employees, saying to employees that their job is to push borrowers from one payday loan to the next.

The chairman of the payday lender‐supported Consumer Credit Research Foundation and president of the Payday Loan Bar Association wrote an email saying, "In practice, consumers mostly either roll over or default; very few actually repay their loans in cash on the due date."