I would not hire Langhorne...Do it yourself

Weren't you notified before hand about your court dates? It is unfortunate for you that you had to go through this but settling things on your own can be done with patience and saves you a bunch of money in the long run.

Good luck to you,

Hi ladybug, Sonic illegally (yes, I mean very illegally) garnished my wages. No prior notice. No court date. Nothing. Langhorne told me to get an attorney but I could not afford one. BEWARE of sonicpayday.com. They are ruthless and messed up everything I had going with Langhorne.

This is exactly what I have said about Langhorne since I spoke with them in January. I didn't like thier attitude or their business practices. It was going to cost me a small fortune to have them settle PDLs that I had just about repaid the principal on. They told me that was the way it had to be. . . .the PDLs woudl not accept anything less than $150 to $200 over the principal and what I had already paid. Oscar, I don't think you are alone in this. I know that people have used them and have been very satisfied. I never gave them the chance. They told me that they had previous PDL experience (as in working as an employee of) and as such knew just what to do. In my opinion, if they knew what to do, they would negotiate and tell the PDLs that enough is enough. Their fees were way above what I was willing to pay to have someone do what I was sure I could do myself. I am now PDL free and I didn't use the help of anyone but the great people on this board. Call it what it is, but I don't think that their organization is much better than the PDLs themselves. The amount of money you have sunk into this hole, and gotten little much back, is pretty much proof of that. I am sorry for the aggravation you have had to endure as a result. I am also sorry that you are back at square one, months later. Perhaps you could give some info on your PDLs to a new start with us on the board?

Thank you so much for your response. I'm glad somebody understands where I am coming from. I forgot to mention that Langhorne took 95% of their fees before they cancelled me.

Anyway, I have been thoroughly reading this forum for several months. I have the IN state laws for predatory loans and copies of letters that I got off of the forum to send out to the payday loan companies. I will keep in touch because I have to work on 15 loans so I am sure I will need help in the future. Also, I started to file complaints with the Indiana Department of Institutions, Attorney Generals Office and BBB regarding these Illegal payday loan companies. thank you.

You are off to a good start by handling this yourself...keep up the good work it will pay off in the end without having to pay someone else to do it for you.

Like Ladybug says, you are off to a good start and you are in good company here on the board. Just make sure your money is safe BEFORE you let the PDLs know that they are about to be cut off. If you don't they will go in anyway they can and take you for what they can find. Touch base often, ask questions and don't hesitate to ask for help. Most importantly, keep us posted on your progress.

These PDL's are from late 2007. I have changed my bank account twice since then and NOBODY has access to it. I started paying all of my bills through my banks Online Pay Bill system and I do not even have checks because I don't want my account number to be floating off anywhere. I do believe Langhorne will keep my bank information safe even though they cancelled me.

That is ridiculous what has happened to you. Also I am in shock your payroll department allowed your wages to be garnished without notifying you at all :evil: A "Wage Assignment" is totally voluntary. For all that money you paid to Langhorne, they could have atleast informed you of that before they started taking their fees :x Any garnishment of wages has to be issued by a court. So in other words that was BS! Payroll should have never honored it! Langhorne informed you to send revocation of wage assignment after the second garnishment, a lil too late at that point :evil:

Oscar you are on the right track now as the others stated. Just follow the advice of the people here on this forum, and you could be PDL free in a few months. Please, Please send a revocation of "Wage Assignment" letters to all current PDL companies. That is the first thing you do after bank account is secured :wink: Best of Luck!

thanks for the info, i considered them awhile back but thought it seemed expensive (payday loans arent legal in my state). it;s always good to hear people's experiences.

You have to be very very careful before you hire Langhorne or any debt company. If I would have known that Sonic payday was going to illegally garnish my wages and Langhorne PENALIZED me for it, I would have never hired them. Also, If I would have known about this forum 4 months before I hired Langhorne, I would have never hired them - even with 16 payday loans.

Does your payroll department now understand that they are not to process any wage assignments and that you have revoked all of them? Having been a payroll manager many years ago, I am appalled that they would allow that second garnishment, even after you had revoked the wage assignments!

Good luck to you! It sounds like you are moving in the right direction!

I've worked for my company for 16 years (large well-known company HQ in Ohio) and to be honest, I should have had the audacity to send a note to the payroll manager after the 1st incident happned with all documentation. I only sent my documentation to the payroll analyst/clerk. I still get upset about it but I think it is too late to do anything about it now with the payroll manager.

You might want to just make sure that the payroll manage knows that no other wage assignments are to be processed from this point forward--just in case anyone else tries.

Your feedback regarding Langhorne will be very useful on this board. I have seen many people asking about them and wanting to know how people who have used them have fared.

Just another example of 'Lawyers' who are "willing to help in time of need." Gosh..I think I've heard horror stories all over this forum. I'm SOOOO sorry all of this happened to you. Seems, what I read, anyway....these so-called lawyers, consolidation companies, etc. put us in MORE debt than we already are.

sd. . . you are exactly right. Once Langhorne told me that they had fomer PDL employees on board, I ended the conversation and never looked back. You would think that it would be comforting to know that THEY know the hazards of PDLs and are willing to help, but it is starting to look as if their knowledge is more harmful, than helpful. As for me, I would suggest using the advice on this board before resorting to outside help. As I stated on another post, seems as if people on coming on here, gathering information and when they finally do come forward, they are well prepared for what is ahead of them. In spite of all the agony that these slugs have provided for all of us, I do feel that things are moving forward and the PDLs are starting to be on the receiving end of their own self inflicted agony.

I wish I could ask Langhorne for a $380 refund for March, April and May 2008 since they did absolutely nothing for me during this time except BLAME me for not paying off some pdl's.

BE AWARE - Langhorne will ask you to pay off some PDL's even though you do not have enough funds in your Langhorne account to do so. They wanted me to pay off my cash now 2 1/2 months after I entered their program even though they knew I did not have enough money in my Langhorne account to do so. When you tell them you do not have enough money, they sarcastically come back at you and say if you choose not to pay off this PDL by such and such date, the amount you owe to the pdl will dramatically increase because I FAILED to pay them...what a joke...after 3 months on board with Langhorne, I paid Langhorne $1,968 in their fees and only had $52 in my account leftover (and also had to deal with a $310 wage garnishment) but they want you to come up with $300 or $400 anyway to pay off pdl's. Do you see what I am saying....Langhorne does NOT CARE about you. They did not care about the wage garnishment and they wanted me to pay off some pdl's even though I did not have enough funds to do so.

Oscar. . .you are preachin' to the choir on that one. I don't feel that they are any better than the PDLs themselves. They take, take, take, and what have you gotten back? Perhaps I am coming down on them a tad hard but my experience with them, as little as it was, was not a good one. ANYONE can do this themselves. Yes it does take hard work, and at times you feel you could just go to the nearest bridge and take a leap but the encouragement I got from this board was what kept me going. Once I got my hutzpah back (aka self esteem) there was no stopping me. AND it cost me nothing other than what I was obligated to pay, or less. Keep up the good work and come here often for help with whatever is ailing you at the moment.

Sohow can they garnish your wages without a court judgement? That scares the hell out of me!

I don't think they actually "garnished" his wages. I think what they did was to invoke his voluntary wage assignment, which Langhorne apparently neglected to tell him that he needed to revoke. The second "garnishment", after he had revoked the voluntary wage assignment, should not have been processed by his payroll department.

That's exactly why it is important to cover ALL your bases with these guys. You can't leave anything to chance. Just because you ask them not to debit your account, not to put any wage assignment into play, not to call you, not to call your friends and family, etc. it doesn't mean they will honor that request. They have a mind of their own and they do whatever strikes their fancy for the day. Do anything and everything you can to protect your money!

Exactly what happened...thank you for clarifying.

I was told that Langhorne automatically sends revocations of wage assignments when it notifies creditors it's representing someone. Assuming they did that in Oscar's case, is it there fault my cash now broke the law and sent something to his boss anyway? If AG's that have police power can't make lenders obey the law, it seems pretty unrealistic to expect settlement companies to do so.

Seems to me that someone looking into using a settlement company to handle pdl's should use the info available on this board and elsewhere to educate themselves understand that pdl's are, at best, barely legal and at worst (which is most of them) a criminal indictment looking for a place to happen. Then if they want to use Langhorne, PDL Assistance or the lastest one, Oakview Law (i.e., the guy that owns this board and benefits most when moderators and hall-of-famers trash his competition) at least they do it with their eyes open.

Personally I don't feel that anyone on this board "trashes" settlement companies. They (we) might give our honest opinion of the situation as a result of personal experience but it is just that, an honest, personal opinion. People can do what they feel is best with the information they receive on this board. They can use it or they can disregard it. That is their choice. And yes, I think people are being educated from use of this board and I am finding that they are coming on here with a plan of action ready when they do post. As for anyone benefiting from what is said on this board, meaning financially, I totally disagree with that statement. Most people do benefit from the advice they get and that is exactly what this board was designed for. If you read through the posts, more often than not, posters are encouraged to settle their PDLs on their own, without benefit of outside sources. And finally, if you don't go into anything in life with your eyes wide open, you are in for a rude awakening once you reach your desitnation. Have a great weekend.

I must add my little tid bit in on this one too. I agree with llw. I certainly didn't trash PDL Assistance even though there were a lot of things they did that appeared shady to me. I'm sure that those companies help some people, but the problem is, they don't care who you are or where you're from. It's like the same rules apply to all. If they know so much about PDL's.. why didn't they tell me from the get go, "All the one's you have are illegal in your state, so we can settle for what you owe in principle, which turns out to be about $100." Instead of overinflating what I owed. Technically if you belived what the PDL companies were saying initially, I owed around $800. PDL Assistance said I owed them $1200. (????) Where did the extra $400 come from?
The beauty of it is, because of the fact that I grew more suspucious of them because they seemed to have a serious problem manning their phones... I did a google search on them and ended up here!

Now, I realize that they could be helpful because they deal with the PDL's for you, but this particular one told me I would have to call them all myself and tell them that they needed to call PDL Assistance. What then, am I paying them for? Why would they not contact the companies for me? They lied to me, flat out, to get me to sign up, they didn't send my $150 welcome packet out when when they said they would. Which by the way, the welcome packet contained less infomation than I found here on this site. So i paid $150 for an email.
I am not trashing the company I am stating facts. They're phones rang busy or I got telephone company (you know the tone) error messages for almost 3 straight days when I called there. How would you expect the PDL companies to even consider calling them when even their customers can't get through? lol.

I posted this so people know as many facts as possible. Not to hurt anyone's feelings. I ended up setting my pdls and not paying another dime to them. In fact, I got a refund from one. With PDL Assistance, I would have paid them about $1000 to pay back illegal companies whom I'd already paid what I owed.
:)
Jen

Jen, I agree with your additional statements. When I called Langhorne I was told that even though I had already paid back what I owed, I would still need to "overpay" the PDLs by a dollar amount close to $200, each. I asked why and was told that was just the way the PDLs worked. A "thank you" for leaving me alone and going away. Plus the fees that I would need to pay to Langhorne to receive the "privilege" of the PDLs going away, were way too high for me to comprehend. As I have said a million times over, I realize that people are in business to earn money but the people they are dealing with are already struggling, scared, fractic and the list of adjectives could go on and on. The are seeking a way out, not a way to add more debt on top of what they already can't handle. Thank God this board exists. If I didn't find it when I did I really don't know where I would be today and what shape I would be in. I could venture a guess that I would be taking a 2 week vacation at R wing of Strong Memorial Hospital, weaving boondoggle and talking with Elvis. These people were my lifeline. I have learned SO much from this board and I have learned a valuable lesson, that I can and do whatever I put my mind to no matter how grim it seems at the moment. I am now totally PDL and I intend to keep it that for a good long time.

Can I get a big AMEN, Sister!!! Absolutely on the spot! PDL's are preditors. I've seen people post (I'm assuming employees of PDL companies) and say "You knew they were illegal when you took out the loan" Uh, no, we didn't. They courted us! They sent the emails, they posted their business on the internet for all to see. It is not our responsibility as consumers to know which companies are legal and illegal. It is however the companies responsibility to know what laws they must follow if they are going to do business outside of their home base state.

Sorry for the rant. But after all the reading I've done, and the personal experiance I've had myself, I think not very highly of the PDL consolidation companies. If they are going to offer a service and label it as "personally fitting your needs" then they need to do their homework. How in the world, is paying $1000 better than getting a refund?? LOL.

I think this site is fantastic! The fact that people can post both sides of the story is what makes it great. Some people have had success, others, like myself and llw, have had a bad experience. It prooves, these companies are not for everyone. Big thanks, again, to everyone who's made this forum possible.
:hug:
Jen

I've never dealt with PDL's, and thus I've also never dealt with PDL consolidation companies, but after reading a lot of posts on this forum that are similar to the ones above, I'm starting to wonder about something.

I did a lot of research on Consumer credit counseling Services when I was trying to figure out a way to pay all of my credit card debt. The CCCS companies charge a small monthly fee to the consumer, but they receive most of their funding from the credit card companies (through some kind of pool that the credit card companies donate to). So even though the credit card companies are willing to work with CCCS to lower your interest rates, your minimum monthly payments aren't much lower than what you were already paying. They receive most of their funding from the credit card companies and they play by the rules that the credit card companies set.

What I'm now wondering is whether these consolidation companies that deal with PDLs also receive funding from the PDLs. Therefore, they are not really willing to go outside the rules that the PDL companies have set. Or maybe it's just that in order to keep the PDL companies willing to work with them, they have to abide within certain boundaries. Whatever the reason, it seems to me from the posts that I've read, that the PDL consolidation companies are not necessarily looking out for the consumer's best interests.

Interesting theory. Any other thougts?

We live in a world where money of any kind from any country rules almost everything and with that....any thing goes.

People of all nations get off the "Credit Grid" :!: :!: Pay cash :!: It is the only way.

I agree with alias 158. Langhorne admits they have excellent working relationships with certain payday loan companies and give them preferred status...yep "preferred status" in their mind means overpayment! Langhorne definitely has something going on with many of the pdl companies.

I wish I could sue Langhorne for NOT telling me that these loans are illegal in my state of Indiiana.

Langhorne is not stupid...they collect 95% of their payment in the first 4 - 5 months before they have you pay off on the loans. I'm sure they know there is a semi-high failure rate on their customers part after they receive their fees. I get so angry they wanted me to payoff 3 loans even though I did not have nearly enough money in my Langhorne savings account. It's like they did this purposely knowing I could not pay off these loans early and then told me I failed the program after they received 95% of their payment.

Bingo Oscar. I am sorry for what you have had to deal with. Please know that you will get through this. Just follow the advice you get from this board and you too will be PDL free in the not so distant future. I honestly feel that they are no better than the PDLs themselves and that scares me. As more and more people become aware of this situation I am afraid that they are "morphing" to something that will not identify them as being part of the PDL world.

I'm so frustrated with my PDL situation. I have 6 of them and all of them are beyond late and in default. Two of them are already threatening lawsuit & garnishment. I want to call them and try to offer settlement payments. Are there any decent sample letters floating around that I can use? Let's so, they say I owe $1,000, I make a settlement offer of a few monthly payments totalling $500 in total payments. If they agree, I'd like to submit something for them to sign.

Any sample letters for this kind of thing? Thanks in advance.

Langhorn actually does do some good work.

He used to be a lawyer for pdl's, so that is how he has the "working" relationship with them. He switched sides and now helps consumers fight these companies.

As far as him favoring certain companies, that I don't think is true. There are some loan companies he will not take on if you have a loan with them because he does have a working relationship with them. But he won't settle that loan and will tell you upfront that he won't.

Langhorn actually used to post on this board a few years back, so I will vouch that they are legit and on our side.

The thing people need to realize is that when you pay a company to do it for you, it is going to cost more. There are pros and cons to both sides.

Should I only contact the pdl companies right now that are bothering me? In other words, I had 16 loans in 2007...I overpaid on 4 and 2 were settled so I owe principle on 10 loans but only 4 of the 10 pdl's have contacted me through the phone or mail since Langhorne dropped me. Should I send c&d letters to all 10 companies or just the ones that are bothering me?

It's really your call - You will want to eventually contact them all and get things settled, but the timeframe is up to you.

I agree, it is entirely up to you, but I would just do a mass mailing and be done with it. Actually once you get busy with it, things seem to move along and it could go easier than you expect. There are tons of letters on here as well as advice. You have a boatload of people ready to help you. Just keep us posted on your decision and your progess.

What has actually brought me to this board was Langhorne. I heard about them and whenever i googled them this board came up. so for that, i will be forever grateful.
i have heard about them online and actually know where their office was physically located (so it wasn't some internet world office, which payday loans are to me). i was interested, it sounded good. but looking into it and reading posts here, i decided i was better off going at it alone. however, since i contacted them for advice, they wouldn't leave me alone! they kept calling and emaling me.. they just wouldnt stop bothering me. that was a huge turn-off. they seemed to have the attitude that if i don't go with them, i wouldnt be able to settle. obviously, thats not true. it seems that they had a good idea with the company though.

Agree. I didn't like the attitude I got from them and when I asked for some time to think it over, they read me the riot act about wasting their time. That was the end of the conversation about using their service. I came straight here, settled me PDLs and am still hanging around to help out. You can do this. Could you gie some particulars on your PDLs?

I'm having a horrible time with Americash Loans in Illinois. They are a storefront in IL. I took out a $1,000 Checkbook Installment loan. I paid $1,637 on it YTD. I still owe $1,959 on it ($550 of this is past due fees). I asked them to freeze the interest today and they practically laughed in my face. I sent a letter to the IL Atty General's office today. I know they won't be able to do anything about it but if they keep getting complaints, maybe they will pass some kind of law regarding installment loans. I don't know how I am going to get this loan paid back. In the end I could end up paying $6,000 or $7,000 on this $1,000 loan.

I am reading through your posts and am in payday loan trouble. Am I understanding you all correctly?? I should close my current checking account and contact all the payday loan people and try and negotiate a repayment plan with them??