Update -- January 5, 2009
This story has taken on a life of its own! It has been
picked up by outlets across the state and across the
nation. Below are just a few examples of news outlets that have picked up
the story since it became an Associated Press story out of
Montgomery:
Massachusetts
Indiana
WAAF-TV Huntsville
WBRC-TV Fox 6, Birmingham
This has turned out to be one
of the more successful initiatives we have worked on at
Borrow Smart. Many, many people have had a chance to
read and hear the truth about our industry from this story.
December 22, 2008
On Sunday,
December 21st the Montgomery Advertiser, our capital city
newspaper,
ran this feature story on payday lending. The reporter
contacted us a week or so prior to the report and requested information for the
story. In advance of the story, the reporter seemed to have the
notion that
payday lenders' business had increased significantly due to the current
economic situation and
implied the industry may be taking advantage
of consumers in these hard economic times. We assured him this was
NOT the case and took the following steps to provide accurate,
up-to-date information for the reporter:
-
Arranged several interviews with local Borrow
Smart member stores.
-
Undertook a member-wide poll to determine how our
business was changing with the new economic challenges. We
launched an instant, on-line poll of our
members immediately for the reporter. You can
click here to see
the interesting results
of this business poll. The reporter used these
results throughout the story.
-
Advised the reporter of initiatives
like this economic initiative that we had previously
launched to prevent customer problems in these challenging times
As a result of
these "proactive steps" (not reactive steps), and in particular
the member poll which was quoted throughout the story, we think the
story fairly presented our industry in a balanced, responsible and a
positive way. Clearly, it could have easily gone the
other way without these Borrow Smart proactive and aggressive actions
as noted here by the Payday Pundit.
www.CouncilForFairLending.com
