The Byline
Frank Glemstone
Consumer Finance Writer · MoneyZap
Frank Glemstone has spent more than a decade writing about the loans most personal-finance coverage skips: the two-week advance, the storefront installment contract, the title pawn. He started out covering the check-cashing and short-term credit business for trade publications, where he learned to read rate sheets the way the companies wrote them, then moved to consumer sites, where he learned to translate. The rule he carried between the two jobs has not changed: read the agreement, not the ad.
His beat sits at the unglamorous end of consumer credit, where pricing is quoted in fees per hundred dollars and monthly rates rather than APRs, and where a wrong assumption costs a reader real money within a single pay cycle. Over the years he has worked through hundreds of loan agreements, state fee schedules and regulator datasets, and he treats the annualized rate as the only honest way to compare a two-week product with a two-year one.
That habit has made him a resource beyond his own byline. His breakdowns of fee math have been picked up by trade publications and consumer sites, and he has walked more than one policy researcher through the difference between a quoted fee and an effective annual rate. What he offers is a reporter's version of due diligence, done in advance, for products whose customers rarely have the time to do it themselves. At MoneyZap, Frank writes every guide, calculator page and rating on the site.
The working method is unglamorous. Each month he re-checks the fee schedules and statute pages behind the site's dataset, flags anything a legislature or regulator has touched, and re-runs the worked examples so a reader in Ohio or California sees the rules that actually apply to them. Scores change only when the underlying numbers do, and the thresholds that produce them are published in full on the methodology page. Corrections get made in the text, not buried. Readers who spot a stale figure — a fee cap that moved, a state rule that changed — are the fastest correction channel this site has, and the ones Frank credits first.
Covers
- Payday, installment and title lending: pricing conventions, state rules, rollover mechanics
- Banking access: check cashing, overdraft, managing without a bank account
- Fintech credit: cash-advance apps, earned-wage access, instant-transfer fees
Method
Every figure Frank publishes traces back to a lender rate sheet, a state statute or a regulator dataset, and every page shows a dated stamp for the numbers it renders. Ratings follow the fixed three-axis rubric documented at how we rate — no black boxes, no scores that can't be recomputed from the published data.
Articles by Frank
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Payday loans online explained: how they work, typical fees and true APRs, state rules, eligibility, and safer alternatives, with worked numbers throughout.
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Compare payday loans, installment loans, credit-union PALs and cash-advance apps for borrowing $100 to $1,500, with real APRs, terms and safer picks.
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Fast cash options ranked by true cost and speed: payday loans, cash-advance apps, card advances and overdraft, plus scam red flags and cheaper routes.
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How installment loans work, from amortized payments to true APR, plus how online lenders compare with banks and what to check before you sign.
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What car title loans require, how monthly fees turn into triple-digit APR, the repossession risk, and cheaper ways to raise cash without pledging your car.
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Payday loan calculator that converts the fee per $100 into a true APR, shows total repayment, and adds up what rollovers really cost on a typical loan.
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Use this title loan calculator to turn an advertised monthly rate into the real APR and total repayment, and see the full fee before you sign anything.
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From Western Union's first telegraph transfers in 1871 to payday storefronts and cash-advance apps: how Americans came to pay a premium for fast money.
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Where to cash a check near you: banks, Walmart, grocery stores and storefront cashers compared by fee, plus no-account options and cheaper routes.
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Payday loans carry a fixed flat fee, not a variable rate. See what fixed legally means, why rollovers re-charge that fee, and how other products compare.
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Most online payday lenders require a checking account for ACH repayment. See the storefront and prepaid-card exceptions, their extra fees, and cheaper routes.
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The MoneyZap rating rubric in full: exact APR and speed thresholds behind every Cost, Speed and Risk score, plus a payday loan scored step by step.
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How hedge funds work in plain English: the strategies, the 2-and-20 fee structure, accredited-investor rules, lock-ups, SEC oversight, and alternatives.