Barbara Martin, Divisional Director of Operations for Advance America, had a great response to an article that came out last week in the Birmingham News online.
“Your uninformed conclusion to eliminate this service from the marketplace would only force consumers who rely on payday advances to use other, less-regulated, more-costly, short-term credit products such as illegal offshore Internet loans and overdraft protection, or pay late fees on credit cards and utility bills.
In Georgia and North Carolina, where payday lending was effectively banned, a Federal Reserve Bank of New York staff report found bounced checks, personal bankruptcies and complaints about other types of lenders jumped significantly when consumers no longer had the regulated payday-loan option.”
