Controversy in Chicago
June 29, 2009 | Illinois, industry | Comments (0)A local payday lending is making loans to the unemployed. From Crains Business:
PLS Financial Services Inc., with 47 local branches and $219 million in revenue last year, is marketing its high-rate, short-term loans to the unemployed, aiming to capitalize on the worst recession since the early 1980s. With metropolitan Chicago’s unemployment rate up to a seasonally adjusted 10.5% in May from 6.3% a year before, that’s a lot of potential customers.
“If you believe there’s nothing wrong with (this type of) loan, why should (the unemployed) be any different from someone who has any other form of income?” says Robert Wolfberg, who shares the title of PLS president with his brother Dan.
Yet the new push doesn’t sit well with consumer advocates, who have fought PLS and other payday lenders in Springfield to try to cap the rates they can charge and are quick to protest on moral grounds.
I believe they couldn’d discriminate based on source of income eve if they wanted to.
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