

Payday Loans: New laws aimed at payday lenders will end up hurting the poor - mhb
http://reason.com/archives/2009/09/25/payday-of-reckoning

======
lzw
Compared to bank charges, payday loans are cheap... Bounced checks involve no
loan and you still get the high fee. And of course, these fees add up very
fast. It really sucks to pay $35 on a $2 check that bounces.

Many poor people don't have bank accounts at all. So credit cards aren't
really an option.

Further, the federal government has paased so called consumer protection laws
that limit peoples power tobdispute credit report errors... Which means more
people have bad credit, especially poorer people who are probably less likely
to challenge their reports. Many organizations that do not extend credit get
to report on credit reports, and a disputed debt that goes tobcollections can
show up on a report a half dozen times from different agencies as if they were
separate debts!

If government wanted to fight payday loans, a more effective solution would be
to make credit reporting companies liable as they used to be, if they report
information that they know is wrong.

