Insta-Loophole: In Florida, High-Cost Lender Skirts the Law
When Florida lawmakers banned high-interest car title loans in 2000, then-Gov. Jeb Bush proclaimed that the new law would protect Floridians from lenders "who prey on the desperate."
But in the past three years, the largest title lender in the country has swept into the state, offering a new version of the loans that effectively allow it to charge the sort of sky-high rates the law was supposed to stop.
An examination of consumer complaints to state regulators about TMX and its InstaLoan stores shows that the customers are often teetering on the edge. One Floridian appears to have renewed her loan 17 times in 1?1/2 years. Another woman borrowed $3,100 and made $2,600 in payments, but after rolling her loan over seven times she still owed $3,900. Rather than keep paying, she surrendered her car to InstaLoan. A third customer had $886 in monthly income, according to her loan application. Just to renew her $3,000 loan would have required more than a third of her income. Rather than pay it, she, too, surrendered her car. "I am 59 years old and disabled, and on a fixed income. I am unable to make such payments and they are threatening to repo my vehicle next week," wrote a Pensacola woman.
http://www.propublica.org/article/insta-loophole-in-florida-high-cost-lender-skirts-the-law
