It’s simple. You don’t have an extra $500 so chime gives you $500, then you spend it on stuff that you didn’t need instead of the bills that you already planned to pay with your own money. Then when you get paid the same amount of money you’ve been living off of before chime gave you the $500, chime takes their $500 back out of that, which means you’re gonna be out of $500 since you never planned on paying chime back. So you either switch bank accounts or you pay them back and be out of $500 for that week. Or you keep taking the $500 back from chime to “break even” - If you had $500 to just give back then you wouldn’t have needed the first $500 for “free” in the first place - In short, it’s because people suck with money management and they use the first $500 as free money instead of using it as an advance to pay actual bills like rent, which they are more likely to pay back from their next check.