Group gathers signatures to cap interest rates on payday loans
A large and organized interfaith action group is tackling predatory lending.
The decades-old group, Communities Creating Opportunities, included that issue, along with health and safety, at a rally at Union Station Tuesday night.
A group needs 90,000 signatures to stop local payday loan shops from charging a sky-high interest rate.
John Miller is a lawyer, a Northlander and a Methodist.
"These are issues that cut across the state line. They cut across racial divides. They cut across all areas of our community. They are interests that we share," said John Miller, with Platte Woods United Methodist Church.
Miller is one of about 600 people near the end of the two-hour-long rally. Organizers say attendance peaked at more than a thousand.
Circulating among the crowd was a petition for a Missouri ballot initiative that would cap the annual percentage rate on what are now described as predatory loans at 36 percent.
The current legal cap in Missouri is almost 2,000 percent. Sound impossible?
Remember: it is an annual percentage rate. Take the weekly rate, for example, since many pay day and title loans are short term, and then add the rollovers often required to avoid default.
It's something one of the participants had a painful personal experience with - paying so much interest on a few $500 loans that he lost his house over it.
"These payday loan people, they target the poor. They target the disenfranchised that can't get money anyplace else," said Elliott Clark, with St. Therese Little Flower Parish.
Clark borrowed $2,500, five loans of $500 each.
After just three years, he has paid $30,500 in interest alone, and he still hasn't paid that off.
Clark rents now. And that home, where his children grew up, where he lived for 15 years, has been vacant ever since he was foreclosed on a year ago.
Copyright 2011 KCTV. All rights reserved.
payday loans in ks - News
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The break affected just three other customers, a city official said, including one residence, Pay Day Loans and the East Alton Community of Christ church, shown in the background. By Jeff Martin - jeff.martin@examiner.net Wednesday's forecast called
Headquartered in Overland Park, Kansas, QC Holdings, Inc. is a leading provider of short-term loans in the United States and Canada. In the United States, QC offers various products, including payday, installment and title loans, check cashing,
No Fax Payday Loans – Saving Money - Kansas Political Watch
Does it really matter that No Fax Payday Loans charge a lot of money for their services? The answer is yes. There are plenty of lenders who are offering competitive rates, so there’s really no reason to be stuck with a particular lender, especially if you know that their rates are higher than normal. You should do your due diligence and make sure that they don’t charge you more than the usual. It might sound like nitpicking, but being able to get a 5 percent reduction on a $500 loan is still $25 that you can save and put towards something else.