Product Review: Cash Advance Network

About the company: Cash Advance Network offers the FASTEST service available to provide the loan you need. Whether you need the money to pay monthly bills, or take care of car repairs, our cash advance service is here to help you with all of your emergency cash needs! [...] Through our instant approval service online, we offer a convenient solution for those who need cash immediately. In just one business day, you will have the money you need to pay your monthly bills on time, pay for unexpected bills, or get your family through any type of emergency situation.

The big pitch: Get up to $1000 deposited into your checking account within 24 hours!

The payday loan business was once called 'usury', and going back to biblical times it was considered the worst kind of sin. Twenty years ago, it was called loan sharking. Today, it's called 'immediate finance', and though nobody breaks legs in the Payday Loan industry anymore, you can certainly fall into traps if you're not paying attention.

That said, there can be no doubt that the reason this sector of the financial industry has grown so quickly is that there's a real demand for fast loans by people who might not have the best credit rating. Think about it - if you have high credit card bills to pay, and the kids are sick, and suddenly the hot water heater blows up in your basement, you can't always 'just put it on Visa', and you don't always have time to get approved for a personal loan.

Sometimes, whether God would have liked you doing so or not, you simply need a payday loan.

But how do you tell the difference between a company out to rip you off and a company simply offering you a little temporary refinancing? Well, in our opinion, you could do a lot worse than a company that doesn't hide the cold, hard truth from customers, and Cash Advance Network is one such company.

Look in their FAQ and they don't hide from you the fact that you'll be paying high interest on your short term loan - expect to pay $30 in interest for every $100 you borrow in payroll advances, and the length of your paycheck loan will be 14 days - after that they'll start applying financing charges to your account. If you're having trouble paying the entire amount back, you can always renew the loan (up to 4 times) against a future paycheck, and in fact they make it easy to do so through the automated web-based system on the Cash Advance Network website.

If you're paid monthly, you can still borrow money from Cash Advance Network, and they'll still permit you to apply for instant cash loans even if you receive social security payments as part of your income.

One big selling point of Cash Advance Network is that they claim the process is 100% faxless - though that's not entirely true. New customers must fax a copy of their most recent paystub or a benefit award letter, and their may be times that you're asked to send in a copy of a bank statement of a voided check, but once your account is set up, you can get cash loans of up to $1000 in just 30 seconds.

As per usual, self-employed individuals won't get any benefit from Cash Advance Network, as the income of such people is too hard to predict, but if you earn a paycheck, need cash in a flash, and don't want to mess around with pawnshops, we advise giving a long hard look at the Cash Advance Network system.

The Product Trends rating: Let's be clear, we at Product Trends are constantly alarmed by the growth of this largely unregulated industry, and the number of people who lose large pieces of their income to ongoing and impossible to pay off loans. That said, just like credit cards, there's a lot of good that can come from them as long as you DON'T GET IN OVER YOUR HEAD. If you genuinely need short term financing, and you're the kind of person who will do the responsible thing and pay back the loan in quick time, then we'd recommend giving Cash Advance Network a look. Three stars.

To try Cash Advance Network for yourself, click the image below: