Summary: The inability for some Texas residents to repay payday loans has sent them to prison despite a law prohibiting such practices.
Over the last two years at least six people have been sent to prison for owing money on payday loans, according to The Huffington Post.
Texas Appleseed, an economic advocacy group, has discovered that more than 1,500 debtors have had criminal charges filed against them in Texas despite a law enacted in 2012 that prohibits lenders from using criminal charges to collect debts.
Texas Appleseed found that 1,576 criminal complaints have been lodged against debtors in eight counties within the state since 2012. The advocacy group also discovered that the debtors have been forced to repay $166,000 due to those charges.
To read more legal news stories, click here.
Appleseed submitted a letter on December 17 to the Texas Attorney General and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.
It is against federal law, the Texas constitution and the Texas penal code to use courts as debt collection agencies.
The 2012 law makes it a civil, not criminal, matter when someone fails to repay a loan. Lenders of payday loans cannot pursue criminal charges against a debtor unless fraud or another crime has been established clearly.
Criminal charges in Texas are usually filed using the word of the lender and evidence that is typically insufficient.
The Texas Justice of the Peace Courts, which take on claims worth less than $10,000, seem to be approving bad check affidavits and then filing criminal charges in those cases.
To read more stories about Texas, click here.
The borrower must enter a plea after charges are filed or be issued an arrest warrant. If the borrower decides to plead guilty, he or she will need to pay a fine on top of the money they already own the lender.
Sam Gilford, from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, told The Huffington Post, “Consumers should not be subjected to illegal threats when they are struggling to pay their bills, and lenders should not expect to break the law without consequences.”
Sheer overload is the reason why predatory behavior continues by lenders. Susan Steeg, the Travis County Justice of the Peace, said that her office was instructed to file charges when they receive affidavits by the county attorney. Once the charges are filed they are sent to the office of the county attorney. The county attorney must review the cases and make a decision as to whether or not to prosecute them.
To read more business news stories, click here.
Despite this info from Steeg, Travis County Attorney David Escamilla said his office never issued those instructions.
“We don’t do it,” Escamilla said.
Will this issue be resolved? Use our poll to share your thoughts.
[poll id=”371″]
No one was jailed for failing to repay their payday loans. That was not illustrated in any of the documents surfaced by the Appleseed. They were prosecuted for a “hot check”. The Payday Loan store will accept checks in two forms; 1.To use as collateral for the loans and; 2. Accepting a check to make a payment on a loan.
If the consumers were prosecuted because the check used as collateral bounced, then the Payday Loan stores are in the wrong.
If they were prosecuted because they made a payment on a loan with a check that bounced, then the Payday Loan store did nothing wrong as 1000’s of people are prosecuted for writing bad checks.
The author needs to educate himself on how this business works as NO ONE was jailed for not paying their payday loan. The Texas Appleseed failed to identify that key fact and they do not want to. Because if they are wrong, Ann will have egg all over her face.
I wish I had a million bucks a year to do half as research like the Appleseed.
Related:
Below is another posting of my “quasi cjs ”
report which to the discerning reader may reveal the inhumane mindset & tactics taught to the police community by the fbi; by inference the unmasking of the fbi’s illegal “quasi cjs” may also shed light on the formation of the brutal & deadly police state in USA (and abroad) that today underpins the modern criminal justice system which itself is an abomination from the perspective of human rights activists. In short the cjs and the quasi cjs are largely run and enforced by criminals and their minions.
Republication of previous report on pervasive and murderous fraud by fbi via their secret, illegal & inhumane quasi cjs.
http://bulgaria.indymedia.org/article/42347