I'm not going to defend Payday Loan businesses or their practices, but as a regular listener, I heard the Freakonomics episode (
Are Payday Loans Really as Evil as People Say? - Freakonomics Freakonomics) on them years ago. It had some very interesting stats based on research that in general showed they aren't as "shady" as most believe. They are basically a last resort for most of their customers, and those customers are high risk in terms of credit.
I was unfortunate enough to share 2/3's of my full name with some scumbag here in the metro Atlanta that had a large Visa card balance. I was getting letters as well as phone calls about it. I tried to explain that I'm not him - but many just wouldn't believe me. As the debt was passed around to "new" collection agencies, it would start all over.