Payday Lenders Gain Middle Class Customers

Payday lending, once considered a source of emergency credit for consumers mainly in lower income brackets, is gaining a new customer base: the middle class. With hundreds of thousands of Americans losing their jobs and more families drowning in debt, a growing number of middle class people are turning to payday lenders to cover the bills, even if it means paying annual interest rates approaching 500%.

Payday lenders’ rates are “pretty high,” Lunetta Blanks, a federal investigator, told the L.A. Times last week. “But when you need the money, you need the money.”

In California, payday lenders in recent years have spread out from central Los Angeles, opening hundreds of stores in more affluent outer suburbs, according to the newspaper’s analysis. Data from California banking regulators show that the trend started three years ago, but has accelerated as economic conditions worsen.

A similar pattern is happening in Norfolk, Virginia, where an investigation by the Virginian-Pilot newspaper found that payday lenders are moving into more affluent suburbs.

“Too many families live with no cushion, so when something goes wrong they turn to payday lenders,” Elizabeth Warren, a Harvard law professor who has studied the industry, told the L.A. Times. 

The problem, of course, is that most payday lenders charge exorbinant interest rates, often drawing borrowers into a perpetual cycle of debt. When a customer cannot pay off the first loan, it is “flipped” into a new, larger loan to cover the first. The average payday loan is flipped eight times, eventually costing $793 for an advance of just $325, according to the Center for Responsible Lending, a nonprofit consumers group.   

“It's almost sadder that they're hitting the middle-income folks,” Jay Speer, executive director of the Virginia Poverty Law Center, told the Virginian-Pilot. “It's people struggling to make ends meet, which includes people at fairly high income levels these days. The problem is, once you get in, you have such a hard time getting out.”

What to to

• Try to cut spending now, before you get into trouble. It doesn’t matter if you consider yourself middle-class. At 450-percent interest, a payday loan can wreck anybody’s long-term finances.

• Find better options. If you really need a small loan fast, many credit unions offer short-term loans with just 12-percent interest.

Comments

[Omar M.]

From the above they had mention that one or two things can be from the payday lenders either that they would give up their percentage rate that they given beck in return for the higher percentage rate of 36% in whcuh the gross of profit and return they have before among the groups that not only on the west Virginia wouold come true with, together with the Payday loans are now being run out of Virginia. Which are effectively bans, on payday lenders, in which are they have participating by two or more than They did leave a little space, but not much – lenders can charge interest for the first 25 days, but if the loan is being return immediately in 25 days, no interest or fees can be applied and afterwards only 36% - effectively free or cheap payday loans. It seems that nearby states that had adverse affects from similar bans weren't enough to save payday loans in Virginia. Read more about payday loans in the Old Dominion at the Money Blog.