Welcome to the Blog
Soon information on Cash Advances in GA will be found here.
YES, I want to join thousands of other supporters who know that having financial choices is important to the free market. Georgians For Cash Advance supports the cash advance industry in keeping this vital sector of the Georgia economy.
March 9th, 2007 at 3:04 am
When will we finally get the payday loans back? Does the government think people are stupid? We know how much we are paying back when we sign the paperwork. It should not be for anyone to decide whom I borrow money from but me, unless the conventional loan people want to make it alittle easier to bounce back from bad times. Until that time, I need the payday loans. I live 800 miles from my parents and if they need me, then I will be there. Sometimes I need alittle help with money in emergencies. Leave the decisions to the borrow. We are not STUPID! We know what we are getting in to.
March 14th, 2007 at 8:59 am
Payday loans are not for everyone! BUT for those of us who CHOOSE to go that route, it’s our choice and we aren’t doing it for the fun of it, it’s a necessity. If the government stopped spending our tax dollars on irrelevant items like $1500 coffee pots, we wouldn’t have to rely on other sources of funds when our income doesn’t match our expenses. Situations and emergencies happen and payday loans need to be accessible. If my family need dental work or any other kind of work that my insurance doesn’t cover, I will CONTINUE to use payday loans. Wake up, Georgians!!!! We are giving our monies to other states because they do allow payday advances.
March 14th, 2007 at 2:32 pm
I have used payday lenders in 2 states and have come away with the same thought both times. Yes, they are convenient and easy to “help” you out when something happens when you need money fast. However, it isn’t easy to get back out from under them. I never took a large payday loan, but because of the high interest rates charged, it took me over a year to finally get out from under each loan. The “fact and fiction” brochure on this website claims that a large percentage of customers use payday loans between once per year and once per month. The reason so many do that once per month loan is that they keep having to take out one of these loans to pay off the last one. They may take a little less each time as they strive to pay it off, but few people can afford to take one of these loans and pay it off completely when it is due while still meeting their other financial obligations. This is where the danger of these loans lie. The “fact and fiction” brochure compares “interest” rates of payday loans to NSF and Late fees charged by banks, credit cards, and utilities. Yes, the payday loan seems like a bargain compared to some of those fees, but it is deceptive. Because as you take one of these loans to pay for the previous loan, you are charged that 300+% interest on that loan too. And that is where the danger lies. Webster’s dictionary defines the term Usury as “the lending of money at exorbitant interest rates.” Most people equate usury with “loan sharks” and that is often one of the ways “loan sharks” are prosecuted. Usury is a crime in most of the Western World, yet somehow these payday lenders are getting around it. Except in states, such as Georgia, who have tightened their laws concerning usury. If these businesses are so great, then why do they have to charge 15 times the interest of a credit card (most credit cards I’m familiar with charge a 21% interest rate) for you to borrow the money for only 2-4 weeks? Why charge 300% interest instead of 100%? Even 100% is a lot (still 5 times that of a most credit cards), but it is a lot less than 300%. If this business is so “honest” and “caring” of the people and wants to help them, then why not compromise with the states and drop their own interest rates? Because until they do, they are no more than legalized loan sharks and need to be treated as loan sharks.
March 15th, 2007 at 10:17 am
Say goodbye to the old west in payday lending
Sounds like our blogger is either current military or former military. If so, he is to be honored for his service. And, his blog brings back reminders of the old days, when payday lending was pretty much like the open range … no sheriff in town to make sure the bad guys didn’t prey on the poor settlers. Yes, that happened.
Well, we can assure him that with the passage of Georgia House Bill 163 and House Bill 420, which are now going through the Georgia General Assembly, all that will change. Both bills require strict licensing, oversight, regulation and enforcement in the cash advance industry. HB 163 prohibits interest on cash advances, so no one will be paying interest on their cash advances like the old days. The law allows a small fee of $15 per $100 advanced to be paid to the cash advance store. The fee never increases, no matter how long the customer takes to pay it back.
HB 163 also prohibits loan rollovers, so that puts and end to the cycle of debt. The new law also allows for a payment plan of four payments to be set up if anyone cannot pay back their cash advance. That is new, too.
Because the Department of Defense has appropriated taxpayer dollars to provide emergency cash advances to military personnel, there is no need for the cash advance industry to loan to military personnel or their dependents anymore. Thus, HB 163 prohibits cash advances to military.
The companion bill, HB 420, will require the remaining bad guys – members of the Georgia Industrial Loan Association – to come under the same strict cash advance licensing, regulation and consumer protections as HB 163 puts on the cash advance industry. The GILA lenders love to add on credit life insurance, loan filing fees, non-filing fees, fee-this and fee-that, in addition to interest, in order to make their loans much more profitable than anything else around.
Our study of one such GILA loan taken out by our secret shoppers showed that on a $244 cash advance, the GILA’s total fees and interest were $67 for a two-week loan. We also had to put up our CD player and TV as collateral. If cash advance is allowed again in Georgia under HB 163, the total cash advance fee for an advance of $244 would be only $38 – with no collateral needed or expected. This is obviously very competitive – something which the GILA lenders are fighting tooth and nail. They want to continue their unfair monopoly.
Finally, no one is arguing that there were not abuses of the payday advance industry in the old Georgia of 2004 and earlier. What has happened is that the cash advance industry has listened to consumers, legislators, regulators and others, and has crafted what may be the toughest consumer protections anywhere in the nation in the form of HB 163 and HB 420. These bills should be welcomed by all and passed into law by the Georgia Legislature – to the benefit of all Georgians who need a short-term cash advance to help with unplanned expenses.
Jabo Covert
Georgians for Cash Advance