I mentioned in an earlier post that I was going to roll out my legislative agenda. This is the second in the series.
Payday lending is another issue that has been the topic of discussion throughout the country. The following video could have just as easily been made in Virginia.
From a Virginian Pilot editorial:
Payday companies loaned out $1.3 billion last year, up from $655 million in 2003, the year after they received permission to charge more than 36 percent interest. More than 433,500 people obtained a short-term, high-interest loan in 2006, with nearly 97,000, or nearly one in four, taking out 13 or more loans.
Payday lenders filed lawsuits against 12,500 borrowers last year, more than double the number reported in 2003.
Targeting the working poor, payday lenders have mushroomed in Virginia since the law first allowed them. Exemption from the 36% interest rate cap has made this business extremely profitable. Have you seen the TV ads they have been running lately? They make payday lending sound like a good thing. In the background, they are making significant contributions to legislators and joining local business groups, who are then less likely to take a stand against predatory lending.
HB12 and SB24 have been introduced which will cap interest rates at 36%. SB25 has been introduced to repeal the 2002 statute. The law prohibiting loans above that rate to military members went in effect in October. From the same editorial:
In September, the City Council of Washington, D.C., voted to cap payday loans at a 24 percent annual interest rate. Many of those companies are expected to flee across the state line into Virginia, where state laws allow interest rates of nearly 400 percent.
North Carolina banned predatory lending last year, while Maryland and West Virginia have never granted state approval for payday companies.
It is time for Virginia to step up and end this practice.
Technorati Tags: Payday lending
VIVIAN J. PAIGE | All Politics is Local 
http://www.virginiafairloans.org is an excellent website by the Virginia Partnership to Encourage Responsible Lending. Payday Lenders are impersonating officers to intimidate the elderly. cut and paste the following link to listen to the payday lending employee impersonating an officer. http://www.faithfulpledge.org/impersonatinganofficer/SheriffCall.html
Former payday lender employees speakout: http://www.virginiafairloans.org/speakout.html
Having used payday lending services in the recent past, I can say that they are definately helpful in covering unexpected expenses. While the interest rate as a whole is rather large, $15 for every $100 borrowed isn’t the worst thing in the world. Then again, it is very easy for people to fall into the trap of having to take out a loan in order to afford to pay one off and still cover ones bills.
Setting a cap on the limits would ideally not put the industry out of business though I think you’ll see a lot of places go under, limiting options to those who need an emergency short term influx of money. It’s a tough balancing act.
We need to root out and contact all those who took money from payday lending companies, like Watkins Abbitt. They should know that this is not an acceptable policy on the part of the Commonwealth, to make it possible for people who can least afford it to pay exorbitant interest rates on emergency loans.
There is no reason to segment the business into two camps; those who are reputable lenders abiding by usury laws, and those with special designation from the Assembly in order to rip off those who can afford it least. One loan business is the same as another, if we are to be fair about it.
“Targeting the working poor, payday lenders have mushroomed in Virginia since the law first allowed them.”
That might as easily read, “Providing a service to the working poor that no one else will, payday lenders….”
I just do not believe that protecting people from their own stupidity is the proper role of government.
but it is the proper role of dem/lib/socialist government!
Interesting, rlewis, because tell me again who it was that signed the federal law? Why that would be Mr. Republican himself – George Bush.
I still don’t get why putting the law back to where it was five years ago is a problem. If VA’s usury laws were good enough for all those years, what’s different now? Besides, I thought Republicans respected tradition.
I think rlewis is under the mistaken impression that the Republican brand has some currency and meaning, thus, the Democrats must be the antithesis of that. Last time I checked, the country was going to hell, and there has been 7 years of uninterrupted Republican rule.
That train left the station quite a while back, rlewis, and I doubt if your fantasy blatherings will bring it back. You should be content that at least some Republicans recognize how screwed up things are, and that they don’t like it any better than so-called ‘libs’ or as you put it, ‘socialists’.
Believe me, if I thought of myself as a Socialist, i wouldn’t hide under the Democratic banner.
AEM,
Is it stupidity if the borrower is at the lender of last resort?
Stupidity can be overlooked in order to have heat or groceries.
36% interest on a $500 loan for 10 days is only $4.93, not enough to cover the cost of the loan’s paperwork. So, if you get the cap passed, these last resort loans will no longer be available.
Are you willing to accept the responsibility for the hardships that will fall on people, evictions, auto repossessions, delayed medical care and lost opportunities, that the loss of this last ditch resource will bring?
Because that is what you are doing. You are substituting your judgment that these loans are, in every case, unwise, for the choices of the adults who choose to make these expensive loans when their backs are to the wall. If you are wrong, others, not you, will pay for your mistake.
I’m just not sure that I am smart enough to foresee every circumstance under which someone would make that choice to be sure there is no situation where it is the right one.
So, I will leave it to others to make their choices in life and live with the consequences of their decisions, instead fo trying to make everyone else’s choices for them.
Then, Mark, we should not be putting those lenders out of business, because then their would-be customers would be without heat or groceries.
“So, I will leave it to others to make their choices in life and live with the consequences of their decisions, instead fo trying to make everyone else’s choices for them.” — Doc Tabor
But that is the essence of liberalism, Doc — that people are too stupid to make their own decisions and live with the consequences.
“Last time I checked, the country was going to hell, and there has been 7 years of uninterrupted Republican rule.”
Uh, no. You may have missed it, but the 2006 election changed things just a bit. If we’re still “going to hell,” then Dems are in on too.
“Is it stupidity if the borrower is at the lender of last resort?”
Yes, it is still stupidity (in most cases).
“Stupidity can be overlooked in order to have heat or groceries.”
I suppose that it can be overlooked, but why should be overlooked?
I decided to actually get the lit from on eof these paypa Cash America type places and I have to tell that anyone who says that they do not know what they are getting in are simply absurd. The interst was posted in huge graphs on the wall and at every turn about how much you would pay per borrow.
People are not misled by any means at least at the location I visited to invesitgate. At one point we we remove the target off of payday lenders and go after the real predator lending institutions that are called mortage companies selling sub prime and second and thrid mortgages to people without any verification of income and all the no doc mess options. If people were provided in those instances as much info that is available at cash Amercia I wonder if they would sign at closing, fact is they are not and our legislators always turn a blind eye cause its big business in this instance. Now our economy will pay the price, now everyone will suffer, not just the individual who at a payday lender borrows. Foreclosures impact the whole economy.
I love how we say payday is for the poverty strciken and yet location are in the affluent suburbs as well all over the State. If payday lending is targeting the poor than I guess it simply is following suit behind the Virginia Lottery. Little outrage for the millions taken from the lower middle class and poverty line by that institution.