Last time I ran payday loans it became blatantly obvious that the top guys were probably double, triple, or even quadrouple selling - and/or had direct buyers paying excessive amounts.
Whatever it was... we couldn't even come close to competing on a high level using a LeadFlash ping tree. I spent a hundred billion hours chatting it up with Slicer (chipmunk) via AIM and ultimately gave up, which is very rare for me.
Chipmunk is very knowledgeable about payday, and I suspect that he knows what's really going on in the industry but is not at liberty to talk about it - especially to a scrub like me.
All I know is that when I purchased traffic at $10+ a click from the very top of Google, I ended up with a huge pile of $2 leads and almost no leads > $30. The game is rigged.