Are internet lenders bound by laws of the borrower's state

Most states will say yes. Email the florida attorney general's ofice and ask question.

Thanks. They are on my to call list for tommorow.

let us know what you find!

Yes, definately let us know every step of the way! :) Good luck!

Yes. But if the lender is in a foreign country they may have laws that say that their laws apply exclusively. Your best bet is a pre-emptive strike in court. You can file suit yourself. In Virginia, and I suspect in most states, violation of the payday loan act is treated as a per se violation of the virginia consumer protection act. That's good for treble damages plus attorneys' fees.

Btw, it doesn't really matter what the law is, if you're not willing to use it. And the place to use it is in court. If you don't make them obey, they don't have to. It's the American Way.

Thanks VLD. Now here is the stupid question. How do I do this? I have no legal background whatsoever. Also, what will it accomplish as far as the lenders. Just a bit of background on my situation. I have several payday loans and after going back and calculating, I have paid in excess of 1200 dollars for two of my 500 dollar loan (Florida law says a max loan of 500 dollars and 10%+5 dollar fee). My credit union is not allowing me to stop payment on these transactions. If I file suit can I stop them from hitting my account. I am also working with a debt consolidation company but they have not research any Florida payday lending laws (and I doubt that they will) to determine if I in fact even owe some of these lenders additional money. Any advice or pointing in the right direction you could do would be greatly appreciated. Do you have a website?

Again, thank you so much.

I don't have a website. You can email me directly, the email address is available with my profile information on DebtCollectionCare (this website).

I don't know what Florida law provides, and, not being an attorney there, I am not competent to advise you on anything other than Federal law.

You should immediately provide the manager of the credit union with written instructions identifying the transactions as well as you can, and telling the credit union that the automatic debits are fraudulent; that you don't owe that money; that they are not to disburse the money; and that any documents or instructions they may have received from you or from third parties purporting to convey your authorization to debit the funds are revoked. Further, your instructions should include a demand (use the word, "demand") that they obtain and hold complete documentation as to the identity of any person attempting to effect such a transfer, including their banking reference information for law enforcement purposes.

WORDS IN THE AIR, WHETHER IN PERSON OR OVER THE PHONE, ARE JUST THAT, GONE AS SOON AS THEY ARE UTTERED.

Make all of your communications with such entities in writing, and have a witness who can testify that they saw you deliver/mail the writing.

Furthermore, I suggest you do two things. First, go to the courthouse in your county and ask someone (information desk, perhaps, or the deputy sheriff who scans for National Insecurity) what the lowest level of trial court is called, and how to get to the clerk's office for that court. When you get there, ask the nice folks at the counter (politely and patiently, they're really busy people) what their procedure is for filing a lawsuit in that court. Don't ask them for legal advice, they can't give it; and if they start telling you that they can't answer your question because it's asking for legal advice, tell them (politely and patiently), that you're not looking for whether to file, or what the merits of your case are, or what cause of action you ought to allege, you just want to know what preprinted forms, if any, they've got for that purpose, how do you schedule your first day in court, how do you get service of process (do they pass the paperwork off to the sheriff or do you do that), what are the fees, purely matters of local procedure in the clerk's office, not legal advice.

Second thing I'd suggest is that you look in the yellow pages under "lawyers" and find one who says he handles consumer related cases in your area. Call and find out if he can advise you on the kind of case you've got, and if not, who would he recommend? But buy thirty minutes of an attorney's time to get him to tell you what cause of action you should use, how to get service of process on the out of state defendants, and so forth.

If the laws of your state allow for an award of attorneys' fees, ask the lawyer if you can make a deal, since you're obviously strapped, financially. What I sometimes do is keep track of my time for billing purposes at my normal hourly rate ($200) and make it clear to the client that that's the amount he's being billed. If he chooses to terminate the case early, he owes me on that basis. If we go to trial and lose, I never ask for the money. But at trial, the client has to be able to look at the bill, testify that he's seen it before, knows what the charges are for, and that the fees charged are reasonable. That's necessary for the Court to have a basis for an award of attorneys' fees. The court is not required to adopt my numbers, but can award whatever amount the court feels is reasonable. Once a final judgment is entered, I cancel the bill and charge 35% to collect on the judgment. Obviously, I have to have some reason for thinking that I'm going to be able to collect if I take a case on under those circumstances.

The point is that you ought to be able to find a local attorney who can cut you a deal of some kind. You need to (everybody ought to) get some level of comfort with the legal system. It's designed to be accessible by reasonably intelligent lay people who are willing to figure out what they need to do to prosecute their cases. If you're a total idiot, or really too lazy to look stuff up in the law library, then you'll take what you get, like it or not. Also, it's up to you to prosecute your case (and to collect on your judgment); the judge is not going to do it for you.

Now, what's the benefit of doing something like that now? You can get a court to issue a written order that says (1) you don't owe the money; (2) the payday loan companies owe you money; and (3) the bank has to provide copies of documents showing what happened to your money. If the bank/credit union sends out the money contrary to your written instructions, send them written notice of the fraudulent transfer within sixty days of your having received the statement reflecting the transfer (you don't have to wait until you get a statement, that just establishes the cut off time). They'll have to refund the money out of their own pocket if necessary.

Finally, it may be possible, if you do what I'm telling you, to convince someone in your local police or sheriff's department that the taking of money from your account constitutes wire fraud. The average cop probably won't understand the technicalities involved, you need to talk to someone at least at the lieutenant level initially, who understands wire fraud.

YOU ARE AWESOME!!! Thank you!