“The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau has received about a million public comments… That figure is the highest in the agency’s five-year history… Consumer groups such as the Center for Responsible Lending and Americans for Financial Reform formed an alliance and ran a Twitter campaign using the hashtag #StopTheDebtTrap and shepherded people to a comment site…”
“More than 700 groups carrying the voices of hundreds of thousands of Americans from every state in the union today called on the nation’s consumer financial watchdog to put forth a strong final rule that will truly end the abuses of payday lending… That message was carried in a letter hand-delivered today to CFPB Director Richard Cordray and signed by national, state and community-based organizations representing seniors, faith denominations and clergy, labor and workers, consumers and veterans among others.”
“Since the release of the Bureau’s proposed rule in June, hundreds of organizations have been gathering comments or borrower stories at faith services, community centers, film screenings, street festivals, concerts, job fairs, and town hall meetings, and through online channels. Major civil rights groups, including the NAACP, the National Council of LaRaza (NCLR), and the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), have been deeply involved in these efforts, along with labor unions, social service providers, consumer and small business groups, and advocates for veterans and seniors.”
“‘While things have improved it looks like some [lead generators] are, predictably, trying to get around the rules,’ said Gynnie Robnett, Campaign Director for Americans for Financial Reform… This is extremely common for the payday lending industry, whose business model is in some part predicated on skirting regulatory barriers to get high-cost loans into customers’ hands.”
“More than 400,000 comments asking for a rule on payday lending to be stronger and smarter have flooded in to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) since a draft proposal on the rule was unveiled in June… On a press call today, People’s Action Institute and Americans for Financial Reform released Caught in the Debt Trap, a heart wrenching report that tells the real story about what business as usual means to thousands of borrowers around the country “
“The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) has come out with a proposal for the first federal regulation of small-dollar consumer loans. This rulemaking could help millions of people and be a breakthrough in the struggle to end the abuses of triple-digit-interest, debt-trap lenders. To realize that potential, however, the CFPB will have to address what appear to be a number of weaknesses in this iteration.”
“Car-title loans, like payday loans, are often marketed as a source of short-term emergency credit; but they’re engineered, the CFPB’s research showed, to suck people into high-cost long-term debt. Only 12 percent of borrowers manage to repay their loans within the typical prescribed term of 30 days, according to the study, while fully 20 percent of borrowers end up losing their vehicles. The average borrower pays more in fees ($1,300) than the amount borrowed ($1,000).”
“Google announced Wednesday that it would ban advertisements for payday loans and related products on its website, saying that they often lead to unaffordable repayment terms and financial harm to consumers… Lisa Donner, the executive director of Americans for Financial Reform, said in a statement that Google’s new standards would stop abusive lenders from marketing what she described as ‘debt-trap products that do serious and lasting harm to consumers.’”
“To its considerable credit, Google has decided to stop running search ads for debt-trap payday loans. This decision, which follows a similar announcement by Facebook last year, closes off an important avenue of customer recruitment for an industry that is doing more and more of its business online. Payday loans, whether made through physical or virtual storefronts, are engineered to suck people into long-term triple-digit-interest debt, making their financial problems worse, not better.”
“About half of all online payday loan customers end up paying fees ($185 is the average amount) triggered by failed debit attempts. Some lenders keep on trying to collect in even when there is likely to be no effect other than to increase the cost to the borrower. Some companies will even break a payment into multiple smaller amounts, submitting three $100 requests, for example, instead of one $300 request. A third of the customers hit with such penalties end up having their bank accounts closed involuntarily.”