Even if you have a steady job, you may be living from paycheck to paycheck, and face unforeseen emergencies–car repairs, health care costs, what have you–only to find yourself unable to pay your way through. There are services out there that can give you short-term instant cash loans, anywhere from a couple of hundred to a thousand dollars. These types of loans are also called payday loans, because the business giving out the loans only checks whether you have a steady source of income, and considers your next paycheck to be your collateral for the loan.

With a lot of these businesses, you can get an instant payday loan online, or you can walk into an actual physical “cash store” and get instant cash as soon as you apply. This can be ideal for people who are in dire need of emergency cash and know that they can pay it back in short order. It can also be convenient for people with bad credit, as these companies don’t check people’s creditworthiness–they’re only interested in whether you have a source of income from which you can pay them back.

But instant cash loans can also be too tempting, and therefore dangerous. Payday lenders usually charge exorbitant interest on the loans (900% annual interest is not unheard of in some cases), given that they are for the very short term, and if you fail to pay them back when the money is due, you might find yourself in an even bigger emergency than you were in before you took out the loan. These payday lenders are also usually under less government scrutiny and regulation, so they can indulge in what some call “predatory lending practices.”