When you’re due a tax refund, the wait can seem forever.

That’s why some tax preparers heavily promote quick refunds, promising to advance customers what’s due back from Uncle Sam or Governor Jim for a small fee.

They come under such names as “Fast Cash Refunds,” “Express Money,” or “Instant Refund,” and they sound appealing, especially the prospect of getting your money in a day or two.

But they’re really a lousy, costly deal, and there are better ways to speed up the process.

Instant refunds are actually loans. Banks work through tax preparation companies, advancing you the money based on the anticipated tax refund. The problem is you have to pay a fee upfront.

All to borrow your own money, money you in effect lent to the government interest-free by overpaying your taxes.

Refund anticipation loans, or RALs, as they’re called, cost consumers $1.14 billion in loan fees, plus an additional $406 million in other fees in 2002, according to a report issued last month by the nonprofit National Consumer Law Center and the Consumer Federation of America.

More than one in 10 American taxpayers took out RALs.

With H&R Block, the nation’s biggest and best-known tax preparation service, the RAL application fee is $24.95, and finance charges range from $5 to $75 for a loan between $200 and $7,000. That translates into finance charges of 34 percent to 129 percent, over and above the cost of having your taxes prepared.

Competitors charge as much as $59 in administrative fees, plus an additional $15 to $30 for same-day refunds. All told, for an average refund of $2,100, a consumer will pay $132, or 240 percent if the administrative fees are included, the consumer organizations said.

Because of the high costs, RALs have come under fire from consumer groups, who call the loans “predatory lending” that exploit the working poor.

Block says it fully discloses the rates and that even though there are no-cost options, they take longer and are not practical for people without bank accounts or secure mailboxes.

In addition, Block says customers taking the instant refund can have the cost of having their taxes prepared deducted from the refund, saving them from having to shell out the fee in advance.

Some opponents of RALs say the high interest rates violate state usury laws, such as in New Jersey, where loan rates are capped at 30 percent.

Block plays down those percentages by pointing out on its Web site that RALs are short-term loans, not annual loans, but it is legally required to quote the annualized rate.

That’s true, but when you combine the fee and finance charge, you’re still paying a lot to get use of your money only a few days sooner than you would otherwise.

The fastest way to get a refund without a fee is by filing your return electronically, and having a direct deposit of your refund into your bank account. That can be as little as two weeks, said an IRS spokesman.

a spokesman for the Internal Revenue Service in New Jersey.

That two-week time frame applies now, when returns are just trickling in, as well as around April 15, when IRS is deluged, because returns are not handled manually, Semanick said.