Payday Loan Companies Should Be Heavily Regulated

What’s more prolific than 7-11, more dishonest than a Vegas bookie and more expensive than a loan from that guy named Vinnie? Nothing more than a payday loan company. I watched these blights on society start popping up on every street corner when I lived in Las Vegas (ironically across the street from the new bar/casino) with disgust specially because I rather play online since I took a sign up offer for william hill. How could a business exist to charge triple-digit interest on people who can barely open a checking account? Even worse, how is it that this kind of business is legal and thriving?

It’s with disgust that I see these same predatory lending businesses setting up shop all over Utah looking to sink their claws into the poorest of the poor, draining them of what little money they do have with slick ad campaigns and well-spun contracts. I don’t quite understand how it is that these loan “businesses” can do this kind of thing while a bank attempting the same would be in court so fast it would make your head spin. Why don’t states have the guts or impetus to take on these legalized loan sharks and give them a whatfor?

I guess we can just follow the money. Payday loan owners have big bucks to spend to make sure their “enterprise” is legal. They’ve even got a friend in the legislature. (Sen. Evans, that’s you, you cad.) The folks getting the screws put to them are too poor to do something about it and get sucked into the promises of easy money with low weekly payments while being charged well over 15 times what an exorbitant credit card issuer would.

I don’t like regulating businesses any more than has to be done to protect consumers from outright fraud. Well, we have an entire industry built on fraud, they’re gouging thousands of Utahns, and we shouldn’t be standing for it. Can we close them all down? No. Should they be forced into a rate cap and have to adhere to many of the same rules as a bank? I think so. Letting these blood-suckers continue as they have been is immoral and despicable; we should have the human decency to do something about it. 

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5 Responses

  1. shabang says:

    Every time my sister sees on of those places go up she remarks…. “THERE GOES THE NEIGHBORHOOD.” A magnet for shady people doing shady things with other shady people’s money is how she sees it.

  2. Shauna says:

    I’d be happy if they all went away. Those stupid things result in too many garnishments I have to set up.

  3. Bill Fox says:

    If they weren’t used they would go away.They are basicly there for stupid people and stupid people have high non payment rates. I seem to remember 1 of those that I used to be related to (not by birth of course) in a different lifetime. With high non- payment rates these places have to charge those that do pay even higher. If you start down the regulation path where does it stop. Do we later decide that people who borrow from HFC (Household Finance) are stupid people also. Thus having to shut down their source of funds also. How about pawn shops,(I used them several times as a young married) maybe those should be regulated as well as the whole concept of the Pawn is definately stupid. Maybe what we really need to do is outlaw stupid people

  4. Joann says:

    Well I think payday loans the majority of them are shady however I also think that it is necessary to have a payday loan because there are times we get into a bind and we have no other ways of getting money. So in conclusion I think some payday loans that are legalized at $10 to $15 per $100 is fair because I remember when I was in a bind and I had to get my car fixed, that money really came in handy for me. I paid back the money already btw.

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