A report by the Center for Public Integrity, says that Internet-based payday lenders operating in California, New Mexico, West Virginia and Colorado are claiming to be “tribal enterprises” of Native Americans, providing them certain benefits of sovereignty, including immunity from lawsuits and state oversight. But one sensational case in Kansas is gaining media attention and…
With 12.5 million Americans unemployed and many facing inevitable debt harassment, consumers are turning to online payday loans, often with obscene interest rates in excess of 500 percent, to make ends meet. To the financially strapped, worrying about today has displaced planning for tomorrow, virtually assuring future financial problems, ruinous effects to their credit report…
Residents of Minnesota are turning to high-interest payday loans and other services outside the mainstream banking system, controversial enterprises that operate through a loophole to dodge state restrictions. The demand for these types of loans more than doubled in recent years, from 170,000 loans in 2007 to 350,000 in 2011, the highest reported to the…
On February 20th, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) announced victory, at least temporarily, in halting unauthorized credit card transactions involving thousands of consumers. The scammers charged credit cards for non-existent goods and services totaling more than $25 million, targeting financially vulnerable consumers who had at some point prior to the transaction, applied for a pay…
Debt collector horror stories abound: There are threats to dig up the dead relatives of those who couldn’t pay their funeral bills, promises to imprison debtors or take their children into custody — even warnings that pets will be killed. Under the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, collectors are prohibited from threatening violence, using profane…
Capital One Financial Corp. exaggerator has been mandated to pay a sum of $210 million for conducting deceptive marketing of credit card add-ons like credit monitoring and payment protection, reports Business Insider. Neither a denial nor an admittance of guilt was released by the firm. The Dodd-Frank Act-created Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) and the…
Bank of America (BoA) has introduced a test program in certain markets called “Mortgage to Lease,” says the Wall Street Journal. It allows BoA mortgage customers facing foreclosure to keep living in their homes by converting them into renters rather than owners. One thousand borrowers in Arizona, Nevada and New York will be able to…
Debt collectors have been known to use various techniques to secure payment, some of which violated the Fair Debt Collection practices act (FDPCA). This can include pestering debtors, their friends, relatives and co-workers with calls at inappropriate times and places. In other cases, debt collections for debts of the dead, can rise from the grave…
A NJ man recently received phone calls from someone claiming to be a debt collector. As it turns out, he paid his loan back months ago but the phony collection calls still tried to scam him out of hundreds of dollars. He’s telling his story to warn others of the threatening calls and collection harassment…
