Tennessee’s Flex Loan law allows repeated borrowing, trapping residents in growing debt.
Jeanette Thomas was living on a fixed income and struggling to stay ahead of her bills when she took out her first loan from a lender called Advance Financial. The loan started small—just enough to cover a few holiday purchases. It seemed like a simple way to manage a tight budget. But after making her first payment, Thomas received an unexpected message. Advance Financial told her she could borrow more on her flex loan. That message, she later said, felt like help at first. It wasn’t.
Thomas, a 62-year-old grandmother with no job due to health problems, was living on disability checks. Every dollar counted. So when the lender offered more money right after she had just made a payment, it was hard to say no. Over time, the company continued to offer more borrowing options. She would get messages with phrases like “Access Your Cash Today” and “You’re Already Approved.” Each message made it feel like the loan wasn’t a problem. She believed she was staying afloat. In reality, the cost was piling up.
She had read the paperwork at the beginning. The interest rate—nearly 280%—was printed clearly, but it still didn’t sink in how bad it could get. What started as $400 became more than $1,600 in total borrowing. She made the payments, mostly just covering the interest. Before long, she had paid nearly $4,000, yet still owed more than $1,000. And every month, more than $200 vanished from her disability check, just to stay in the same place.
Thomas said she felt stuck. Every payment gave her the option to borrow again, and the pattern kept repeating. She said it was like being pulled deeper each time she tried to climb out. Despite making payments, the debt didn’t shrink the way she expected. It only grew. The more she paid, the more the company encouraged her to keep borrowing. And nowhere in those follow-up messages did the company explain just how much the new debt would cost her in the end.
Laws in Tennessee used to prevent this kind of cycle. Payday loan rollovers—where borrowers take out a new loan just to pay off an old one—were made illegal in 1997. That ban stayed in place through later updates to the law in 2011. But in 2014, lawmakers passed a new rule allowing something called a Flex Loan. It gave lenders a different path to offer high-interest loans without the same restrictions. And this time, there was no rule stopping reborrowing.
Advance Financial, the company behind Thomas’s flex loan, operates under this newer rule. It also runs a sports betting platform, mixing fast cash loans with other high-risk businesses. State records show that this kind of setup lets lenders offer ongoing credit with very high costs. But the people who take these loans—often low-income, disabled, or otherwise vulnerable—rarely see the long-term math until it’s too late.
The offers sound like a way out. In practice, they can act more like a trap. Thomas isn’t the only one who says she got caught in a loop of reborrowing and interest payments. Each step felt like it would lead to freedom. But each payment simply kept her tied to the debt, draining her only source of income and leaving her with less every month.
Stories like hers have raised concerns among advocacy groups, consumer watchdogs, and some lawmakers. They say the rules need to change again. They argue that the lack of limits on reborrowing leaves too many people vulnerable. The promise of quick money ends up taking far more than it gives, especially when the borrowers are already living close to the edge. And for those like Thomas, who had hoped for relief, the loan only made things worse.
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