Advance began filing thousands of lawsuits soon after Tennessee lawmakers approved the Flex Loan, a product pioneered by Advance in Tennessee. The loan’s $4,000 cap is nine times higher than the limit for most payday loans, and the company charges the equivalent of a 279.5% annual interest rate. Before Flex Loans became legal in 2015, payday lenders could only lend $425, and the borrower could never be required to pay back more than $500. Since then, those protections have been eliminated and thousands of borrowers have been defaulting.