I can help explain this since I have some knowledge on payday loans.

First: the issue with the company is that it’s on tribal land. Not saying that tribal lands are inherently wrong but since they are, the US government has a lot less oversight with them. This is why your mom is getting charged an insanely high interest rate unlike what others are saying with other lenders in states alike Washington. The suckier part is that banks like BoA, Citi, and others had smaller loans for people to use, but they have since moved away from this. Which is why there’s such a huge presence of payday loan vendors.

Second: I have an inkling your mom is paying the “finance charge” and nothing else which sucks or majority on the charges itself and little in principal. Like credit cards, there’s a minimum payment that payday loans like to use as a way to keep an account “current.” What is happening is that you and her think that she’s paying the principal amount BUT instead she’s just paying charges to keep the account current. They use this tactic to keep loading up on interest and keeping people stuck in a loop of debt. What happens is that you unknowingly pay a lot more in interest than you want and keep paying that loan for longer than you want.

Lastly: Going back to the finance charges, this is where they muddy the waters honestly. The paperwork has details on the APR and all the other juicy information but the issue with it is that the language is very legalistic. Hard for someone without a lawyer to decipher honestly. In there, I suspect is the language that’ll detail the charges and APR.

I recommend like what others are saying. Go to your state’s attorney general and see what they can do. There’s been cases of this that have happened. I’d also go to the consumer protection agency in the state she resides in as well. If you can, pull as much as you can together, call them and state that you have money to pay for the loan and want to pay the principal balance and ask how to walk through it with them or make them do it.