We will very happily pay you 95 cents on the dollar for your California IOU. Please enter the requested info on our Interest List Form and we will get back to you right away. After you enter your info, please return to this page and continue reading. We have cashed a number of these IOUs for customers, however we have helped even more understand that they may have some even better options. So read below and know that we will be thrilled to cash you out if you decide we are still the best option for you.

There are quite a few people who want to "help" you get cash for your California IOU. But, unless you truly have no other alternative, you are losing a TON of money by accepting this kind of help. Most of these "helpful" check cashers will pay you around 80-85 cents on the dollar for your California IOU. 15% interest you say. Not great but not completely terrible to get quick cash in my pocket. Well, actually, that's what they hope you will think.

The problem for you, and the wonderful thing for them, is that, yes, they will make 15% when they pay you out for your California IOU. But this profit will be over a period of only 82 days or less (because California will payout the full IOU amount to them on October 2nd). If they give you 85 cents on July 13th, they only have to wait 82 days until October 2nd to receive a full dollar back. So the 15% is NOT an annualized rate.

To figure the annualized rate you are really being charged for this cash, first divide the 15% by 82 days so that you know what your daily interest rate is (in this case approximately .18%). Then to figure the annualized rate, simply multiply your daily interest rate by 365 (.18% x 365). That equates to an annual interest rate of about 67%. On top of that, on October 2nd, California will pay out the full IOU amount plus an annualized interest rate of 3.75%. So these "helpful" check cashers will make a tidy profit of over 70% on the deal! You would have to search high and low to find a better way to throw away your hard earned cash. Sound good? 8/14/09 UPDATE: FROM TODAY'S WALL STREET JOURNAL, "California's chief accountant said Thursday that the state would stop issuing IOUs on September 4, ending an embarrassing chapter for the economically hard-hit state. Controller John Chiang said the IOUs would be redeemed a month before the planned date of Oct.2, because the state's revised budget would replenish its coffers." What this basically means is that the person who buys your IOU is now getting an even MORE amazing value than they were when we originally wrote this.

What can you do about this?

Well, reading this was step one. At least you are now armed with information and know that no one is doing YOU a favor by cashing you out for your California IOU. Step 2 is to realize that, although some of the major banks stopped taking these California IOUs as deposits as of today, there are still other banks and especially credit unions who still will. Do some research, figure out which banks and credit unions are still accepting IOUs as deposits and open an account with them. If you do not want to go through the process of establishing an account with a new bank or credit union, it is likely that your current bank will still work with you. "Banks will work with customers on an individual basis to assist them, perhaps offering them home equity lines or short-term loans", said Beth Mills, spokeswoman for the California Bankers Association in a recent LA Times article. You can be certain that the rates your bank will charge you for this kind of short term loan are substantially lower than 70% annual interest. To get a better idea in real terms of what you will lose by using a Craigslist check casher versus trying to work with your existing bank, click here.

If you are still determined to sell your IOU to a 3rd party instead of going through a bank or credit union, at least ask a family member, a good friend, heck even a casual acquaintance, to cash you out instead. Part of the reason that Craigslist lenders want such a high payout is that they don't know you. They charge you a high rate because they are taking on the risk of receiving a counterfeit IOU or being misled in some other way. But with family and friends, there is no risk (at least we certainly hope you wouldn't defraud family and friends, or anyone for that matter). Point is, you might be surprised to find out how many of your friends and family would be very happy to cash you out at a fraction of the cost that you might pay elsewhere. You could offer a friend the opportunity to buy you out at 95 cents on the dollar (way better than what the Craigslist posters are asking for), pocket a whole lot more of your own hard earned cash, and still be allowing your friend an annualized investment gain of over 25%. Believe me, anyone you know who has enough money to help you out would be THRILLED with this kind of guaranteed investment return. Do the math. If they bought you out at even 99 cents on the dollar, they'd still be making an annualized return of over 8%. Still a great investment gain for them. So don't be shy about asking. If I had a friend or even casual acquaintance who DIDN'T come to me with this kind of opportunity and instead paid 70% interest to someone they don't even know or like, I would be truly saddened.

Short and sweet. The main point is you MUST keep your eyes open. There is almost always a better answer than a payday loan or check-to-cash. Before you act, always calculate your true annualized interest rate and, once the shock wears off, find a better way to get access to your own money.

As everyone who has read through our site or taken our Free 4-Day E-Course knows so very well, we at Show-Me-Their-Money.com make significant profit based entirely on our understanding and manipulation of the very basic relationship between borrowed and invested dollars. It simply kills us to see so many people who are willing to throw their money away because they are not paying attention.

As we stated at the beginning of this page, we would be more than happy to buy your IOU at 95 cents on the dollar. Just don't think that we are doing you some kind of favor when it is YOU who is doing US the favor. We'll even send you a thank you card. If you are still interested, please fill in all your pertinent info on our Interest List and we will get back to you right away to finalize the transaction.

If we have convinced you to find an alternate solution, one that gets you more of your own money, we are thrilled to have helped and would love to hear about it. Once this IOU crisis has passed, we are going to recap for our readers both how much we made by cashing out these IOUs and also how much we were able to save people who heeded our advice. So please let us know either way.

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