by Ronnie Dauber

Created on: June 06, 2008   Last Updated: June 19, 2008

Our world is changing from predictable and methodical to fast-paced and impetuous. Many people find themselves in need of quick cash and look to the wrong places to get it, suffering tragic financial losses. Here are five mistakes to avoid when raising cash quickly.

1. Predatory Lending: The focus of this type of lending is on a high return within a short period of time and basically stems from greed. It includes gambling at casinos and racetracks, card games and online computer games. The profits are based on luck and the problems arise when one lucky win leads to the addiction of investing again to get more. In most cases, it results in losing everything you have.

2. Pawn Shops: These businesses will buy or sell anything without discretion and will hold your item as collateral for a loan, giving you quick cash.

However, you need to beware of the following: a) when you sell to them, they only give you pennies of the actual value of your item, so it's an instant loss for you; b) when you're buying from them with the intention of selling it to make money, you have no way of knowing if that product is stolen, which incriminates you if you're caught with it; and c) if you're borrowing cash from them, leaving your valuable as collateral, there's no guarantee that they won't sell it to someone else.

3. Unsecured Loans: This is lending or borrowing money with no security or guarantee that you'll get the money back. You could lend it to a person for a short period of time with the intention of reaping a high percentage return but if that person goes bankrupt you would lose all of your money and be the last on the list of creditors to receive anything in the bankruptcy claim.

If you borrow quick cash from someone or some place that will lend it without a credit check, you need to be aware that their policies might not be acceptable as in, they could call the loan in at any time and their interest rates may be so high that the full loan could be many times the value of what you borrowed.

4. Opening Too Many Credit Cards. This might seem like the perfect way to get instant cash, however, there are two important aspects that you need to consider: a) the interest rate that you will be paying on money withdrawn from your card will be very high and the original debt on the card could grow very quickly into a large debt; and b) you will have many debts incurred since you now owe money to several banks for different credit cards.

This type of fast cash could push you into financial

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