Back about 5-6 years ago, a bunch of states passed "usuary" laws because of those "ez loan til payday" check cashing places.
In most of the places, if you sit down and figure out what the fees and penalties come out to if you convert them an interest rate, it was in excess of $200%. I used to work with this chick who got herself in trouble using them. She started at one place, then had to go to another one to payoff the check at the first one, then another one to pay off the second check, then she was back at the first one and it just snowballed out of control. She and her husband finally had to take out a personal loan at the bank to cover all these checks. She got them all paid off and had a little bit of money extra. Now, realizing this chick and her husband had been reduced to eating peanut butter and Kraft Mac and Cheese every night, they spent the extra to buy a TV/vcr/dvd combo for their 1 year old baby's room. Jeez, she had no sense at all.