Editorial Policy: How We Research and Review Our Guides

Last updated: October 29, 2026.

TCA Financial (tcaloans.com) publishes guides on payday loans, cash advances, installment loans, state lending laws and your rights with lenders and debt collectors. This page explains how those guides are researched, checked and kept up to date.

Disclosure: TCA Financial is not a lender and does not make credit decisions. We connect people with independent lenders and may be paid by those lenders for advertising. Our guides do not rank or recommend individual lenders, and no lender reviews or approves what we write. The guides are general information, not legal, tax or financial advice.

Who writes our guides

Guides are published by the TCA Financial Editorial Team. Every guide shows the date it was last reviewed at the top and again at the end.

Sources we use

We build each guide from primary sources wherever they exist:

• State statutes and regulations, read on the official legislature or agency website for that state.
• Federal law and rules, such as the Truth in Lending Act, the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act and Regulation F.
• Consumer guidance and research from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and state financial regulators.

Each legal or numeric claim links to the source it comes from, and every guide ends with a list of its sources. When an official site cannot be reached, we say which source we used instead, or we leave the claim out.

How each guide is checked

Before a guide is published, a second editor reviews the draft. The review covers:

• Every statute and regulator fact, checked against the official text.
• Every cost example, recalculated. Our standard example is a $300 loan for 14 days with a $45 fee ($15 per $100), which works out to an APR of about 391%.
• Plain wording: no promises of approval, no “guaranteed” or “instant” claims, and a clear note when a rule differs by state.
• The featured image and its text description.

Keeping guides current

Lending laws change. When we learn that a law we cite has changed, we review the guides that rely on it, and we update the “Last reviewed” date only when a guide has actually been reviewed. Our payday loan laws by state guide is the main reference the state guides are checked against.

Corrections

If you find an error, email support@tcaloans.com with the page address and what you believe is wrong. We check the source, correct the guide if needed and note the new review date.

Where to get help with your own situation

Our guides cannot tell you how the law applies to you. A nonprofit credit counselor, a legal aid office or a consumer lawyer can. To report a problem with a lender or debt collector, contact your state financial regulator or submit a complaint to the CFPB.