West Virginia Attorney General Darrell McGraw
West Virginia Attorney General Darrell McGraw is at it again… in a good way. McGraw has been on a mission to shut down payday lenders and their collection agencies that operate in his state. McGraw’s office began their crackdown on the internet payday lending industry in 2005.
Since then, McGraw’s office has successfully concluded 75 investigations of Internet payday lenders and their collection agencies, which have netted a total of $1,784,772.82 in cash refunds and cancelled debts for 6,612 West Virginia consumers.
Now, McGraw has sued not only 7 online payday lenders, but also 5 of their accomplice collection agencies. The really great thing about this is that McGraw is not just going after the lenders, but also their collection agencies.
The problem with online payday loans is that they are illegal in many states (and some are illegal in all states, as they operate offshore), yet they are using legitimate, licensed U.S. collection agencies to do their dirty work.
This means that although a state may deem a loan illegal and unenforceable, their citizens are still being reported to the credit bureaus and to bad check databases. The effect is that the “victims” have their credit destroyed and lose the ability to write checks at many nationals retailers, such as Wal-Mart.
McGrew doesn’t stop with naming the following payday lenders in his suit:
- Cash Advance Now d/b/a PeoplesPayday.com of Miami, FL
- Debt Doctor, LLC d/b/a Magnum Z, LLC of Wentzville, MO
- Direct ROI d/b/a Cashwest Payday Loans of Mesa, AZ
- E Smart Credit Network d/b/a www.YourLoanServices.com of Miami, FL
- Island Payday, LLC d/b/a www.islandpayday.com of Ogden, UT
- Platinum Finance Company, LLC d/b/a www.PaycheckNow.com of Wilmington, DE
- Sonic Cash, LLC d/b/a Sonic Cash Online Payday of Boise, ID
He also names the “reputable” and “legitimate” collection agencies below:
- A.C.A Recovery, Inc. of Ridgewood, NJ
- Capital Collections, LLC of Miami, FL
- Covenant Management Group, LLC of Gainesville, GA
- Oasis Financial Solutions, LLC of Orange Park, FL
- Westbury Ventures of Wilmington, DE
Congratulations to WV AG McGraw on this latest crackdown. Without addressing the collection agencies that are complicit in this, legislation against payday lenders will go nowhere. We are not going to stop payday lenders from operating over the internet from Costa Rica, but we can certainly stop their US-based, licensed accomplices.
Tags: Attorney General, Collection Agencies, Debt Collectors, Payday Loans, West Virginia
