New York Prosecutors Charge Payday Lenders With Usury

[alp227]

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 state’s 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]

1. Gee, there's a novel concept

[ErikJ]

2. We drove most of these leeches out of our state

http://pubcit.typepad.com/clpblog/2007/06/oregon_curbs_pa.html

[tomm2thumbs]

3. you'd think the power of the banks would be behind this -- wonder why they aren't...

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]

4. Not Asleep; Steering the Train (wreck)!

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]

12. Because they own most of them through shadow subsidiaries.

[Joanie Baloney]

5. I think I know why they got up off their duffs!

The prosecutors watched Last Week Tonight with John Oliver Sunday night. It was a thing of beauty, BTW.

-JB



http://itsh.bo/1sGKlSQ

[freshwest]

7. Agreed. That was epic!

[Hoppy]

9. Not so. The investigation began about a year ago.

Vance, Jr, seems to be as good an A.G. as Spitzer was.

Lets hope he takes his socks off.

[Uncle Joe]

6. Kicked and recommended.

Thanks for the thread, alp.

[Enthusiast]

8. Kicked and recommended!

[stillwaiting]

10. I get upset when I think how the Dems have not sharply focused on this travesty a long time ago.

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]

11. Dig a little deeper

and the face of the Mafia will appear.

[Kelvin Mace]

13. About time

So, how about any credit card company that charges more than 12%?

[noiretextatique]

14. indeed

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.