What’s wrong with these people?
June 17, 2010 | Virginia, industry | Comments (1)What kind of person takes the time to write a letter to a newspaper ranting and raving about payday loans? Do these people have any perspective?
The media drumbeat
June 14, 2010 | Virginia, industry | Comments (0)Fredricksburg.com keeps up an unrelenting crusade:
Some Virginians know, but many don’t, that car-title, payday, and open-ended lenders charge interest rates of 300 percent APR to 400 percent APR on loans.
By any definition, this is usury. But usury is legal in Virginia under laws passed and reaffirmed every year by the General Assembly.
Payday, car-title, and open-ended lending are reverse Ponzi schemes.
The Virginia legislature examined these services carefully. They acted. But nothing is ever good enough for agenda-driven journalists.
Staunton faces “steep odds”
June 1, 2010 | Virginia, industry | Comments (0)From the story:
Area legislators and other officials said Staunton City Council’s effort to further restrict payday lending practices faces steep odds of convincing the legislature to pass the requested reforms.
“This is an issue that has been studied for quite some time in the General Assembly and an agreement was reached (in 2008) after lengthy negotiations, and it is considered a reasonable compromise by just about all parties involved,” said Del. Ben Cline, R-Rockbridge. “I don’t foresee any action in the near future to reopen this.”
We don’t wish you luck
May 27, 2010 | Virginia, industry, regulation | Comments (1)The Staunton, VA City Council has big ambitions:
Council will discuss adopting a resolution today to ask the state to impose an interest rate cap of 36 percent, calculated as an effective annual percentage rate, that includes fees and charges that payday lenders require.
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Jamie Fulmer, director of public affairs for Advance America, one of the larger payday lenders, said the charges by critics of the industry are based on fundamental misunderstandings of the services they provide. He said claims, such as there are viable alternatives to borrow money in a pinch, are not true, adding using a payday lender is often less expensive than having to bounce a check.
Pawn shops boom in Virginia
March 29, 2010 | Virginia, alternatives, industry | Comments (0)Is it a coincidence that since Virginia created a more difficult operating environment for payday loans pawnshops are booming? This is the second story we’ve post in the last two weeks:
The back room of Vinton Pawn Shop Inc. looks like a pi-rate’s cove, a hardware store and grandma’s attic combined as one.
It has shelves of fishing poles, chain saws, weed whackers, hunting rifles, guitars in cases, vaults of engagement rings and gold necklaces, a slot machine and a Rascal scooter. With 13,000 square feet of storage, there’s hardly room for more stuff.Shops such as Vinton Pawn straddle the line between banking and retail — two business models that have been less than stagnant in the past year. Stagnant or not, almost 1,000 pawn shops opened in the past few years in the U.S. and at least two new storefronts have lit up in the Roanoke Valley: 220 Pawn & Gun Inc. in Roanoke County and Bargain Pawn in Salem.
The shops loan money — usually $100 or less, plus 5 percent to 10 percent interest — and keep collateral, such as DVD players or hunting bows, in storage. If a customer defaults on the loan after 30 days, the item in pawn becomes mer-chandise.
A deflated economy has increased the stores’ revenues from loans and gold sales while slowing retail sales.
Johnny Hill, a 16-year industry veteran who works at Vinton Pawn Shop, says it’s the “golden age’‘ and the “heyday’‘ of pawn shops.
The “golden age” of pawn shops
March 25, 2010 | Virginia, alternatives, industry | Comments (0)From the story:
Shops such as Vinton Pawn straddle the line between banking and retail — two business models that have been less than stagnant in the past year. Stagnant or not, almost 1,000 pawn shops opened in the past few years in the U.S. and at least two new storefronts have lit up in the Roanoke Valley: 220 Pawn & Gun Inc. in Roanoke County and Bargain Pawn in Salem.
The shops loan money at usually $100 or less, plus 5 percent to 10 percent interest and keep collateral, such as DVD players or hunting bows, in storage. If a customer defaults on the loan after 30 days, the item in pawn becomes merchandise.
A deflated economy has increased the stores’ revenues from loans and gold sales while slowing retail sales.
Johnny Hill, a 16-year industry veteran who works at Vinton Pawn Shop, says it’s the “golden age” and the “heyday” of pawn shops.
She doesn’t get it
March 23, 2010 | Virginia, industry | Comments (0)People need access to short-term credit. Maybe the state legislators know more than this columnist.
More blah, blah from Virginian Pilot
February 22, 2010 | Virginia, industry | Comments (0)These editorial writers won’t be happy until citizens in Virginia have no access to credit.
New bill in Virginia
February 1, 2010 | Virginia, industry | Comments (0)Here’s the description from the newspaper:
HB 412 – Authorizes local governments to reasonably limit the number of payday lenders that operate in the locality.
HB 413 – Allows a locality to adopt an ordinance requiring payday lenders to get a special exception or special use permit to operate.
The bills would let local officials such as city councils and county supervisors limit payday lenders in their communities. O’Bannon noted that there often are tensions between federal and state governments and between state and local governments.
The Daily Press is deranged
January 13, 2010 | Virginia, industry | Comments (0)This Virginia newspaper is obsessive and frightening. Hardly a week goes buy without them writing something like this:
Predatory lending: Legislators must do more than play “whack a mole” with an industry that finds a new way to exploit desperate people every time the law closes one. The solution is obvious: make all car-title, payday and open-ended lenders subject to the protections and interest-rate caps of existing lending laws. Give all consumers the protection the military demands for service members.
Yea, maybe all Virginians should become state employees and participate in the state “alternative.”
