Tag Archives: usury
A Last-Ditch Effort to Rein in Payday Loans
In a last-ditch effort to salvage payday loan reform, Rep. Mike Villarreal called on a recalcitrant Texas House committee to send legislation to the House....Read More
Payday Loan Reform Faces Uphill Battle in House
Late into the night, the payday loan industry strutted its stuff before a very friendly House committee. The hearing came just a week after the Senate passed a ...Read More
GOP Senator Accuses Colleagues of Being ‘Shills’ for Payday Lenders
An ugly scene erupted in the Texas Senate today, with Sen. John Carona (R-Dallas) suggesting that some of his Republican colleagues were "shills" for the payday...Read More
Rep. Tom Craddick Wants to Regulate Payday Loans
It’s becoming a perennial pastime at the Texas Capitol. Former speaker of the House Rep. Tom Craddick (R-Midland) files a simple one-page bill that would clos...Read More
Payday Lenders Buy Themselves a Weakened ‘Reform’ Bill
At a legislative hearing this morning, state Sen. John Carona, the Dallas Republican who’s leading the payday “reform” effort in the Senate, basically sai...Read More
Former Rep. Vicki Truitt Gets Her Payday in the Lobby
Former legislators don't die, they come back as lobbyists quicker than you can say cha-ching! Today's profile in reincarnation is former state Rep. Vicki Truitt...Read More
Major Payday Lender Condemns the Cash Store, Calls for Investigation
After we published my story on how a major Texas-based payday loan chain, the Cash Store, has found a way around new state and local rules, a representative fro...Read More
Payday Loan Chain Owned by Major GOP Donor Skirts Texas Law
As serendipity would have it, I had stumbled onto the latest mutant creature in the wild and wooly world of Texas payday lending. "What you've come across is re...Read More
Payday Loans: A Pound of Flesh—Fees May Apply
Let’s be plain about what makes these businesses so profitable: usury. Structuring a loan to charge $130 in fees per $100 borrowed (that’s the averageRead More