Loan Payday Today

Credit unions intensify payday-lending efforts - 2006-01-02
... will introduce a payday-loan product intended to spare ... rollover fees charged by traditional payday lenders. Most ...

City Council takes aim at payday loans - 2005-11-28
... regulate the burgeoning payday loan industry. Recent Company News » Community ... City Council takes aim at payday ...

CBC Radio | The Current | Whole Show Blow-by-Blow
... two class-action lawsuits against payday loan companies. Ms. Kalajdzic was in ... a special CBC series today ...

The Ohio Association of Second Harvest Food Banks withdrew from a fight for tougher payday loan regulations after being pressured by a national payday company that gave $500,000 to its parent organization. Rent-A-Center, a Texas-based rent-to-own company that also offers payday loans, complained after learning the food-bank group was a member of the Ohio Coalition for Responsible Lending. A Second Harvest official agreed last week to drop out of the group. “I think it's outrageous that Rent-A-Centers that do payday lending would coerce a charity to essentially back their political line,” said Bill Faith, a leader in the Ohio Coalition for Responsible Lending. “To get them off of our coalition doesn't help the industry one bit. It just makes them look like the idiots they are." The coalition has been a leading supporter of a bill passed yesterday by the Ohio House that would cap payday interest rates at 28 percent, prevent loan terms of less than 31 days and limit borrowers to four loans per year. Industry officials say that, if enacted, the bill would quickly put them out of business. Rent-A-Center officials last month called the Chicago-based America's Second Harvest, the nation's largest hunger-relief organization, after learning the Ohio association of food banks was a member of the coalition supporting the payday loan restrictions, said Ross Fraser, spokesman for Second Harvest. The rental company opposes the Ohio legislation and was concerned that its donation to America's Second Harvest was being used to work against them, Fraser said. But it wasn't. The donation was being used by the national group for operating expenses and was not passed through to the state association, which operates independently, Fraser said. The Ohio Association of Second Harvest Food Banks has never received a donation from Rent-A-Center. Nonetheless, Fraser said Rent-A-Center officials were referred to Anne Goodman, who runs the Cleveland Food Bank. She also sits on the boards of both America's Second Harvest and the Ohio association of food banks. “We must have our name taken off the Web page of the Ohio Coalition for Responsible Lending. (America's Second Harvest) got another call today from Rent-A-Center as they thought it would be gone by now since my conversation with them last Tuesday,” Goodman wrote in an April 18 e-mail to the association's executive director. In an interview with The Dispatch today, Goodman denied talking to anyone from Rent-A-Center. Goodman said she ordered the association's name removed from the coalition's Web site because it violated the board's policy. “The board did not know we were supporting legislation,” she said. “The Ohio association took a position not authorized by the board.” But the board did approve joining the coalition last September when it approved the Ohio Association of Second Harvest Food Banks' 2008 Work Plan Goals and Objectives. It said the “executive director will provide leadership and serve on the … Coalition for Responsible Lending.” Ohio food banks have good reason to be concerned about payday lenders. A recent survey of Ohioans who visit food pantries showed 46 percent of them had used check cashing or payday-lending services. Guy Whitcomb, a vice president at Rent-A-Center, told The Wall Street Journal that he and a co-worker called food-bank officials repeatedly to express concern about the Ohio affiliate's role in the payday-lending fight. “No business is going to support an organization whose primary purpose is to hurt its customers or put its employees in the unemployment line,” he told the paper. The payday bill is now in the Ohio Senate, where hearings will begin next week. A key senator said there is strong interest in passing a bill before lawmakers take their summer break in June.

| Arbutus XVI| Lodge XVII| Pay Day XVIII|