payday loan references

I was wondering if anyone's references from a PDL application has had problems opening a bank account or getting money from an account due to the fact that they were used as a reference on your PDL.

I am in the process of trying to pay off a few loans from illegal lenders. I have already sent letters to them stopping my ACH withdrawals and telling them that I will only pay the original amount of the loan. This has stopped the withdrawals but I have yet to hear back from them about where I can send my payment to.

In the mean time, one of my references just received a large lump sum check from a personal injury lawsuit he was involved in and is now in the process of trying to open a bank account to deposit the check. He told me that the check has cleared but the bank cannot release the funds yet because I used him as a reference on these PDLs and have stoped making payments on them. So somehow, his name was dragged into all of this because he was listed as a reference so there is a flag or block on his new account now. This person actually owes me a lot of money which is the reason why I got into this PDL mess (I know, it was a HUGE mistake lending him money). But this reason/excuse he gives me as to why he can't get money from the bank seems really fishy. I was just wondering if anyone else has had any problems like this.

Thanks for reading (sorry this is a long post), and any help is appreciated!