New York Prosecutors Charge Payday Lenders With Usury
Source: NY Times
A trail of money that began with triple-digit loans to troubled New Yorkers and wound through companies owned by a former used-car salesman in Tennessee led New York prosecutors on a yearlong hunt through the shadowy world of payday lending.
On Monday, that investigation culminated with state prosecutors in Manhattan bringing criminal charges against a dozen companies and their owner, Carey Vaughn Brown, accusing them of enabling payday loans that flouted the states limits on interest rates in loans to New Yorkers.
Such charges are rare. The case is a harbinger of others that may be brought to rein in payday lenders that offer quick cash, backed by borrowers paychecks, to people desperate for money, according to several people with knowledge of the investigations.
The exploitative practices including exorbitant interest rates and automatic payments from borrowers bank accounts, as charged in the indictment are sadly typical of this industry as a whole, Cyrus R. Vance Jr., the Manhattan district attorney, said on Monday.
Read more: http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2014/08/11/new-york-prosecutors-charge-payday-lenders-with-usury/
NBachers
(17,146 posts)ErikJ
(6,335 posts)tomm2thumbs
(13,297 posts)exerting more influence and getting laws on the books to handle these outfits. They do have powerful friends in high places afterall.
Are they asleep at their own switch?
cer7711
(502 posts)The big banks are the payday loan vendors, in most instances--wearing a more feral, predatory mask.
http://www.peoplesworld.org/payday-lending-makes-banks-big-profits/
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/21/big-bank-payday-loan_n_2924657.html
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/03/26/a-fresh-reminder-that-pay_n_5029993.html
Fuddnik
(8,846 posts)Joanie Baloney
(1,357 posts)The prosecutors watched Last Week Tonight with John Oliver Sunday night. It was a thing of beauty, BTW.
-JB
http://itsh.bo/1sGKlSQ
freshwest
(53,661 posts)Hoppy
(3,595 posts)Vance, Jr, seems to be as good an A.G. as Spitzer was.
Lets hope he takes his socks off.
Uncle Joe
(58,426 posts)Thanks for the thread, alp.
Enthusiast
(50,983 posts)stillwaiting
(3,795 posts)Payday lenders should have been reeled in years ago, and elected Dems seldom even talk about it.
Thank you Cyrus Vance and Manhattan prosecutors (you seem to be a very rare breed).
PeoViejo
(2,178 posts)and the face of the Mafia will appear.
Kelvin Mace
(17,469 posts)So, how about any credit card company that charges more than 12%?
noiretextatique
(27,275 posts)But payday lenders are charging 400±%. Credit card companies should be next. The money trail will eventually lead to the 'too big to fail' assholes we bailed out.