Chapter 45: The Rolling Cash Machine
Chapter 45: The Rolling Cash Machine
Lance pulled a stack of cash from the drawer, carefully counting out ten five-dollar bills. He laid them flat on the desk, counted them again for the man sitting across from him, then stacked them neatly and handed them over.
"Mind if I ask," Lance began, "why you chose us?"
The man, a dockworker, was already busy counting the money. "You’re the only ones willing to lend me fifty bucks. Everyone else said it was too little, and the interest was ridiculous."
Before coming here, the man had approached other lenders, but none would help. It wasn’t that fifty-dollar loans lacked profit potential—quite the opposite.
Most finance companies operated on steep interest rates. A fifty-dollar loan could easily balloon to over a hundred dollars in three months. However, these firms often balked at the logistical and financial risks of such small sums.
If the borrower disappeared or defaulted, recovering the loan could cost more than the loan itself. Tracking someone down, sending staff, and covering transportation and meal expenses could quickly exceed the profit margins.
This is why finance companies preferred larger loans with higher profits to offset potential recovery costs. For Lance, however, such "low-hanging fruit" was precisely the entry point he needed to carve out a niche and avoid direct competition.
Not only did Lance have the man sign the contract, but he also had him press his fingerprint on the document. To seal the deal, the contract included a clause: