Lundy’s bill is missing a Republican co-sponsor in a largely Republican Senate. Its a very ticky-tack law, so any legislator with common sense would stay away.
Here are some of the low-lights:
- Make it harder for payday lenders to evade the law through alternative licensing by capping loans of $1,000 or less at the state’s 28 percent usury rate, regardless of which lending statute the loans are made under.
- Require most lenders to give consumers at least three months to pay back loans of $1,000 or less.
- Forbid lenders to evade the 28 percent interest cap by imposing phony fees. After the new law went into effect, payday lenders began charging credit investigation fees, even though they historically haven’t run credit checks on customers. Similarly, the bill would bar lenders from issuing loans to customers in the form of checks or money orders that they then charge customers to cash.
- Require payday lenders to follow some of the federal fair debt collection rules in place for third-party debt collectors. Under Lundy’s bill, lenders who use their own employees to collect past-due loans would not, for example, be able to harass, threaten or intimidate consumers who fall behind on repayment.
- Impose fines for violations of the law.
You can read more about Ohio here.
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