Tuesday, November 13, 2012

More Spotlight For Online Tribal Payday Lenders & Their Ripoffs

Law Professor Nathalie Martin writes in Credit Slips:
  • As reported on Turtle Talk [...], Oregon and Washington are none too pleased about tribal payday lenders making loans to citizens of their state, in contravention of their state usury laws.

    Online tribal payday lenders are setting up shop on Native land in order to get the benefits of sovereign immunity, as Josh Schwartz and I wrote about in our Washington and Lee Law Review article.

    According to a story posted on a Portland Oregon tv web site, tribal loans are now at the center of a legal battle at the highest levels of the U.S. Government. An Oregon senator is now trying to push a bill that he authored through the U.S. Senate, which would provide that lenders may not operate out of a tribal reservation or overseas, or anywhere else, if the resulting loans violate of state laws.

    If this federal bill became law, the Consumer Fraud Protection Bureau would have the power to stop the lending.The turtle talk post also linked to a warning to consumers posted by the Oregon Division of Finance and Corporate Securities. This link contains a partial list of the tribal payday lenders.