W. Allan Jones, Check Into Cash.

• Author: Goehl, George
• Position: Brief article

W. Allan Jones is the founder and CEO of Check into Cash, the company that launched the payday loan industry. Jones, whose net worth as of 2005 was reportedly about $500 million, lives in a 250-room mansion in Cleveland, Tennessee, modeled after George Vanderbilt's Biltmore. He also owns two private jets, a regulation size football field, and a 157-foot yacht. Jones rakes in more than $20 million every year by making small-dollar loans with interest rates of more than 400 percent to people who are struggling to make...