NEWS ARTICLES
Updated: December 23, 2008
MONTGOMERY ADVERTISER WRITES FEATURE STORY ON PAYDAY LENDING
December 23, 2008.
On Sunday, December 21st the
Montgomery Advertiser
ran this feature story on payday lending. The reporter
contacted us a week or so prior to this 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 be sure an accurate story
was written:
-
Arranged several interviews with local Borrow
Smart member stores.
-
Undertook a member-wide poll on the
internet to determine how our
business was changing with the new economic challenges. We
launched the on-line poll of our members immediately for the
reporter. You can
click here to see
the interesting results
of this business poll.
-
Advised the reporter of initiatives
like this economic initiative that we had taken
to hopefully prevent customer problems in these challenging times
As a result of these actions, and in particular
the member poll which was quoted throughout the story, we think the
story fairly presented our industry in a fair, responsible and a
positive point of view. Clearly, it could have easily gone the
other way without these Borrow Smart actions
as noted here by the Payday Pundit.
NATIONS CAPITAL EFFECTIVELY BANS PAYDAY LOANS
September 19, 2007.
Washington DC has effectively
banned payday loans. We have several stories to read about this
decision. The
first
story is from the Washington Post that covers the vote and the
decision. The
second story
is from an Ohio paper reporting before the vote. Ohio is the home
of Check N Go who is the target and a "justification" for banning payday
loans in DC.
Third, is a
story that you will have to search long and hard to find. It
is from RTO on
line and it turns out the witnesses and former Check N Go employees who
testified against Check N Go and the industry are convicted felons.
There are a several items that are interesting
about this story. First, you will notice the
CRL is prominently behind this move and their next target is Check N
Go whose home is in Ohio. CRL is becoming quite active in many
states. Second, this looks like an "inside job." The council
person who sponsored this is a Georgetown attorney with a
consumer/activist background. CRL is based in DC and it is hard to
imagine that these two do not cross paths. Third, the loss
of DC is sure not positive PR when it comes to influence it may or
may not have on federal legislation. The fallout from this will
not be good.
GOVERNMENT GAO REPORT FINDS MILITARY DECISION TO BAN PAYDAY AND TITLE
LOANS FLAWED! September 6, 2007.
We
could have told them so. But, don't expect to see changes any time soon
to the military bill as a result of this highly critical GAO
report on the John
Warner National Defense Authorization Act. You can read the news
report
here
and the government report
here. Among
the reports findings are that the DOD:
-
Used input only from industry critics
to formulate the law
-
Used limited support for their findings
-
Did not establish any direct link between the
use of certain credit products and financial problems by
military personnel
-
Action denies military personnel a credit
option
ALABAMA ARISE LAUNCHES PAYDAY LOAN EFFORT -- AND FLOPS.
August 21, 2007. So now the
Alabama Arise, one
of our most significant adversaries and one we believe to be funded by
trial lawyers, has decided to get into the payday loan business. What is
so very special about this effort is they are always the first to jump
on the "predatory" bandwagon. Here is
what
they have to say about payday lending. As a matter of fact,
they were across the table from us as consumer representatives meeting
with the Senate study group on payday lending in the last legislative
session. Of course they
proposed a 3% interest rate never mentioning their own failing effort at
3%.
They clearly are failing at trying to run a payday
operation. Actually, according to them, they would be
successful if they could only get funding. Really?
That begs the question, why can't they get funding? Is their model
flawed? Can you really charge 3% a month and have a going
business? They can't do it, but they want us to do it!
This story is a perfect example of the frustration
we feel when we read these stories that get buried deep in a paper and
they get no real coverage in the broad press. We know there is "so
much truth" that never gets beyond us and clearly never, ever gets the
coverage like the bashing, front page articles we get from the press.
Well, thanks to CFL, that is all about to change. These are the
kind of stories that are made for publicity for us and thanks to our
members it is going to begin soon!
See Big
Communication's (Robin) comments. This has been our focus from
the beginning and there really is no other way to do it. Over
time, we aim to change our image in this state -- by providing the
public and the government decision makers the truth about us.
Thanks, Alabama Arise.
Click here and read this very interesting story.
WASHINGTON POST
SLAMS PAYDAY LOANS AND GETS A STRONG CHALLENGE. August 3, 2007.
This article appeared recently in the Washington Post. It is
similar to the frequent and one-sided attacks we often read in the press.
But, this one prompted a
quick and pointed response by the
CFSA. The
response addresses important arguments that we believe have gone
unanswered. There are also new and quite pertinent points raised
in the response.
Do not miss the discussion in the response regarding CRL. It is quite
informative. Did you know they owned a credit union? Read
this and it is clear there are well-heeled competitors behind these
attacks.
By the way, it is interesting to read the feedback
comments from Washington Post readers. The majority of
the comments
support payday lending. Where is the outrage?
The response is a must read.
