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struggle4progress

(118,290 posts)
Thu Feb 21, 2013, 09:51 PM Feb 2013

A still-bad idea on payday lending

The advocates of payday lending say the virtues of the industry include providing a sort of credit to people who can’t get it otherwise, against their future paychecks. The industry, they say, offers a convenience, a service to people who need it.

But that service, before North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper and lawmakers ran payday lending operators out of the state more than a decade ago, came at a high-interest price and borrowers often found themselves on a treadmill, trying to pay off one loan with the next, and so on. It was bad business.

And it still is. But state Sens. Jerry Tillman of Archdale, Tom Apodaca of Hendersonville and Clark Jenkins of Tarboro are perfectly happy to offer this unsavory industry another crack at North Carolina consumers. They’re the sponsors of a bill to bring back payday lending. It would allow postdated checks with fees as high as 15 percent. The lenders have another pal: former House Speaker Harold Brubaker, now a lobbyist for the industry.

Cooper is quick and clean on the subject. “This,” he said, “is the same old rip-off we ran out of our state years ago. These overpriced loans trap borrowers in a cycle of debt many cannot escape. Payday lending was a bad idea then and it’s a bad idea now” ...

http://www.newsobserver.com/2013/02/21/2697334/a-still-bad-idea-on-payday-lending.html

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A still-bad idea on payday lending (Original Post) struggle4progress Feb 2013 OP
Payday lending is a bad idea, due to the high interest rates. richmwill Feb 2013 #1
I wish they would ban... Rochester Feb 2013 #2

richmwill

(1,326 posts)
1. Payday lending is a bad idea, due to the high interest rates.
Thu Feb 21, 2013, 09:59 PM
Feb 2013

Even at my poorest, when I didn't have any money at all, I never would have done it. The rates are shockingly high. It's like dealing with loan sharks.

Rochester

(838 posts)
2. I wish they would ban...
Thu Feb 21, 2013, 10:06 PM
Feb 2013

...loans secured by car titles, excluding those that people use legitimately (to buy the car). There are a number of places that make such loans around here. I hate to think how many cars they've snookered from desperate, vulnerable people who depend on them.

(note: I don't live in N.C., I don't know if those are allowed there or not - I just saw this thread on the "Latest threads" page )

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