My sense is that most slashdot readers don't need to be told to avoid payday loans. However, if you have a friend of family member who needs persuasion that payday loans are very bad indeed, see this page I assembled: http://www.bills.com/payday-loan-laws/

As you can tell from my history, I used to be the editor of LinuxWorld and worked in the computer journalism word most of my adult life. For the last 3.5 years, I've worked as one of the editors at Bills.com, which is a completely different gig.

Here's a new debt calculator tool Bills.com created: http://www.bills.com/debt-consolidation-calculator/ The nice thing about it is it puts all consumer debts in perspective, and it helps people look at repayment options and the costs of each.