Oklahoma

Payday lenders charge exorbitant fees to borrowers without assessing their ability to repay, and the annual interest rates on these loans are in the triple digits.

A few high-cost lenders are evading state consumer protections through rent-a-bank schemes. Through these sham arrangements, these companies are exploding right through the interest rate limits that most states have put in place for good reason, to protect people from high-cost debt traps that drain them of their hard-earned income. In the following states, payday lenders are using banks, which aren’t generally subject to state interest rate caps, to make usurious loans that exceed the state’s rate cap. The banks engaging in these schemes are abusing their charters and enabling predatory loans...

Read Lisa Stifler's remarks before the December 2014 CFPB Field Hearing on Medical Debt Collection on the distinct lack of standards for when a bill is sent to a debt collector or reported to credit reporting agencies. These distinctions can result in unique harms to individuals in the credit reporting context. As CFPB research has shown, consumers with medical debts on their credit reports are overly penalized in their credit scores, underestimating the creditworthiness of those with outstanding medical debt, as well those who have paid it off. As a result, they may be unjustly penalized for...

Payday and car title loans are small-dollar, high-cost products that thrive on keeping consumers in a cycle of debt. With lenders doing essentially no underwriting, consumers find it easy to obtain these loans, often marketed as a solution to financial emergency. However, the unaffordability of the loan and the lenders extreme leverage over the borrowers – either through direct access to the bank account or threatening repossession of the borrower’s car - makes it very difficult to escape a cycle of debt that can last months, if not years. Debt trap products often lead to other financial harms...

Payday and car-title loans typically carry annual percentage rates (APR) of at least 300%. These high-cost loans are marketed as quick solutions to a financial emergency. Research demonstrates, however, that they frequently lead to debt that is nearly impossible to escape. In addition, these loans are related to a cascade of other financial consequences, such as increased overdraft fees, delinquency on other bills, involuntary loss of bank accounts, and even bankruptcy. For car-title loans, the end result is too often the repossession of the borrower’s car, a critical asset for many people...

Read the full report (PDF) >> Read the executive summary (PDF) >> Payday Loans, Inc.: Short on Credit, Long on Debt dispels the notion that a payday loan is a short-term debt. Although marketed and advertised as a quick solution to an occasional financial shortfall, the actual experience of payday loan borrowers reveals there is nothing quick about the loan except its small principal. According to new CRL research that tracked about 11,000 payday borrowers over two years, many borrowers remained indebted for the 24 months that followed their initial loan. As payday's crippling cycle of debt...

This color-coded map of payday stores by household reveals a disturbing pattern. Southern states are among the most targeted for these high-cost, low-dollar loans.