Military Funding USA/WORLDWIDE Military Loans Inc

This is part of an older article in the "Army Times", you might look through the most recent articles. If my memory is correct, the Military put an interest cap on pdl's.

[quote]Law restricts family loan options

By Karen Jowers - Staff writer

Some military personnel and their families will find that certain loans are no longer available to them Oct. 1, as payday loan companies and other lenders consider their options in preparing for a new law that takes effect that day.

Some industry officials warn that military families need to be aware that these options are vanishing. The consensus is that many payday lenders will stop offering these loans to troops and their families rather than reducing their fees to meet the required cap of 36 percent on annual interest rates.

And sources said the tax preparation industry will be unable to offer refund anticipation loans to service members.

???????The refund anticipation loan as we know it will not be offered to the military. The loan you got last year will not be available,??????? an industry source said.

Although the loans are made for less than two weeks, as with payday loans, the annualized cost of the loans total more than 36 percent interest.

The Defense Department????????s final rules for implementing the law appeared in the Aug. 31 Federal Register. The law, passed as part of the 2006 Defense Authorization Act, caps the annual percentage rate at 36 percent, to include fees and other charges, on loans made to troops and their families.

The rules create a new term, ???????Military Annual Percentage Rate,??????? to describe the total cost of a loan, expressed as an annualized percentage rate. The MAPR would have to be disclosed before a military borrower agrees to a loan.

The law is designed to protect service members from predatory loans, which have been cited as contributing to a ???????cycle of debt??????? that causes financial problems for some personnel.

But military family advocates argue that the rules don????????t go far enough. The rules cite payday loans, vehicle title loans and tax refund anticipation loans but do not address other types, such as military installment loans, which were cited in a 2006 Defense Department report as being part of the problem.

???????Given the sweeping protections Congress gave, [the Defense Department] had the ability to clamp down on predatory lending, but they chose the least restrictive measures,??????? said Jessica Perdew, deputy director of government relations for the National Military Family Association.[/quote]

The defense department regs only cover payday loans, title loans and refund anticipation loans. The definition of payday loans is pretty narrow. If the loan is scheduled to last more than 91 days before final payment is due or if it's an open ended credit line, it's not a payday loan. That doesn't mean they're legal - that's still something decided by the states but it does mean the special military protections don't apply to installment loans.

Yes, I know that since this is an installment loan, it is not covered by the cap like pdl's. I am trying to find out that if you are in the military and a legal resident of another state other than the one you live in. If the lender is not licensed to lend in your legal resident state, does that make the loan null and void? One thing I noticed recently on Military Funding USA's website is that they now include Florida as a state they can not lend in. I find this odd because they are licensed in Florida.

I know that Military Funding is no longer providing loans due to an investigation into some allegations of illegal findings. They are still providing the loans using the name Worldwide Military Funding.