Posts tagged as:

predatory lending

Payday loans under fire in the Minnesota legislature

March 18, 2009

There are two bills (HF0914 & HF1471) pending in the Minnesota legislature. HF0914 would eliminate payday loans entirely. HF1471 would impose some regulations on payday lenders and adds a private right of action for consumers, with attorney fees and costs.
Minnesota Public Radio has more on why payday lending is under scrutiny and at risk of [...]

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Enacted Payday Lending Legislation – 2008 Session

September 18, 2008

Enacted Payday Lending Legislation – 2008 Session | Nat’l Conference of State Legislatures (via Payday Lending Association)

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Predatory Lending Association: dedicated to extracting maximum profit from the working poor

September 18, 2008

The website of the Predatory Lending Association* is chock-full of great information for payday lenders, such as racial profiling tools, tips on lending to members of the military (no, 20 payday loan stores by a military base are not too many), and a working poor finder, which uses Google Maps to help predatory lenders find [...]

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Predatory lending made worse by Bush Administration

February 20, 2008

In case you missed it over Valentine’s Day, Elliot Spitzer, consumer rights hero, wrote a great J’accuse piece in the Washington Post . In the piece, Spitzer rightfully accuses the Bush Administration through the OCC of actually making the predatory lending problem worse by first trying to ignore the problem, then when the States [...]

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Barack Obama on the subprime mortgage crisis

February 20, 2008

Here is a short video from Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama in which he promises to create a ten million dollar fund to help keep people in their homes and a tax deduction for homeowners who do not itemize on their income tax returns.

[via Consumer Rights Watch]

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Yeah! Where was Washington?

December 17, 2007

The New York Times has a good piece on the total lack of interest on the part of Washington to listen to the many voices of reason who were warning about the subprime crisis. I think overall though it lets the Feds off too easy, especially Alan Greenspan. The discussion with Greenspan has some interesting [...]

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Payday holiday: do we need a vacation from payday lending?

December 17, 2007

In a new staff study from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Donald Morgan and Michael Strain take another look at whether payday loans are predatory or, in Morgan’s terms, welfare enhancing. This time around, Morgan takes a look at the “afermath” when Georgia and North Carolina banned payday lending.
(Dr. Morgan has commented on [...]

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Barack Obama calls for safeguards against predatory credit cards

December 10, 2007

“The truth is, our middle-class families are not going to be secure so long as they can’t get out of debt,” Obama said Monday, sharpening the populist rhetoric of his presidential campaign. “If we’re serious about stopping Americans from falling deeper in debt, we’ve got to crack down on predatory credit card companies that are [...]

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Nick Slade joins the Caveat Emptor blog

November 29, 2007

Consumer attorney Nick Slade has joined the Caveat Emptor blog as a contributing editor. Nick has been taking consumer cases since 2000, when he refocused his practice from criminal defense to consumer law.
Nick deals with a variety of consumer issues, including auto fraud, equity stripping (also called foreclosure rescue scams), predatory lending, the Truth-In-Lending Act, [...]

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Off to D.C. for the NCLC 2007 Conference

November 6, 2007

I will be in Washington, D.C., for the National Consumer Law Center 2007 Conference from tomorrow afternoon through the weekend. If my posting frequency falls off, that’s why. But I will try to keep the posts coming, especially about topics that come up at the conference.

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What is equity stripping?

April 6, 2006

Equity stripping is a type of predatory lending brought on by the housing “boom.” As housing prices skyrocket, many homeowners don’t realize they are living in a goldmine. At the same time, property taxes are skyrocketing, forcing many homeowners into default. Those living on fixed incomes are particularly vulnerable.
This combination means unscrupulous individuals have a [...]

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