See my research, posts, and articles on payday loans, including risks, regulations, and alternatives. Click the link to explore key insights and options!
With big, bright signs offering quick cash, storefronts for payday loans are hard to miss. But while they may offer plenty of promises for easy financial help, there’s more to them than meets the eye. Before you go down the financial rabbit hole payday loans can create, there are some things you may want to …
Question: Dear Steve, A threatening e-mail saying I owe for a loan I NEVER TOOK. Telling me I will be served if I don’t pay in 24 hours. Threatening all the things you list in your bogus letters. Telling my employer, my family, the case will be downloaded in 24 hours and I will be …
Question: Dear Steve, I’m on Social Security. I get only $579.00 a month. I have 2 payday loans, $657.00 & $557.00 I can afford to keep paying the interest of $147.00 & $95.00 each month cause I’m able to pay anything toward the Principal. I need some kind of help. What is your charge to …
Question: Dear Steve, I have about $110k in debt ($22k on two cars, $88k in various credit card/unsecured debt). Some of my creditors are online short-term/payday loans. I have heard that such loans may or may not be illegal, because the creditors are not licensed in my state (Texas). If a lender is not licensed …
A Silicon Valley-based installment lender that caters to Latino immigrants announced on Tuesday that it would drop all the lawsuits it has filed against borrowers who fell behind on payments, including during the coronavirus pandemic. Oportun Inc. also said it would cap interest rates on new loans at 36% — a percentage that consumer advocates …
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) is rolling back protections for consumers that payday lenders needed to first make sure the expensive loans they were selling could be afforded by the consumer. As it stands now, payday lenders will have a much easier time selling mathematically unaffordable loans and setting consumers up for failure. The …
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (Bureau) announced a settlement with Cottonwood Financial, Ltd., which does business under the name Cash Store. Cash Store is based in Irving, Texas and owns and operates roughly 340 retail lending outlets in Idaho, Illinois, Michigan, New Mexico, Texas, Utah, and Wisconsin. The Bureau found that in the course of …
Question: Dear Steve, I have 2 payday loans, one I revoked and they charged the loan off supposedly. They continued to send in requests to my bank even when the dates weren’t authorized. The bank put a stop pay but they keep trying. I know I shouldn’t have even contacted these payday loan lenders, but …
Cecila Avila was finishing a work shift at a Walmart. David Gordon was at church. Darrell Reese was watching his granddaughter at home. Jessica Albritton had pulled into the parking lot at her job, where she packed and shipped bike parts. All four were arrested by an armed constable, handcuffed and booked into jail. They …
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (Bureau) and the South Carolina Department of Consumer Affairs (South Carolina) today filed a lawsuit in federal district court in the District of South Carolina against Katharine Snyder, Performance Arbitrage Company, Inc., and Life Funding Options, Inc. The companies, owned and operated by Snyder, brokered contracts offering high-interest credit to …