Missouri Illegal Payday Loan Advice
Date: Tue, 08/04/2009 - 17:57
Like so many others, my husband and I recently fell into the payday loan trap.
Starting in April, our son had several expensive medical needs. My husband's employer charges $900 a month to cover the family on group insurance. We cannot afford that much money for insurance, so none of us were insured when my son became ill. He was just determined to be disabled by the Social Security Office a couple of weeks ago and now qualifies for a free medical insurance program due to his disability. But since we had no medical insurance at the onset of this situation, we had to pay out of pocket for medical care when his illness started. Due to low financial resources, we felt at the time that we had no other choice but to take out a payday loan to pay for our son's doctor visits and medicine.
Before we knew what had happened, our one loan exploded into a total of 5 loans within a three month time period! If we now pay JUST THE INTEREST for these loans, it would take almost all of my husband's paycheck. And of course none of the lenders are sensitive at all about what this means to our family, why we had to take the loans out in the first place, or how many different loans we are juggling around. They are not willing to work out affordable payment arrangements with us.
Needless to say, with the stress of our son's illness and then the financial mess we found ourselves in, we have been strained beyond description. Thankfully I found this forum a couple of weeks ago. We just took the advice to plug up the holes so we can pay rent and buy food. We have stopped all ACH transactions with our bank and are beginning the rocky road of negotiation in order to get out of this mess. (Our bank tried to talk us into closing our account, but we read that in Missouri it is illegal to close an account when you owe outstanding payday loans.)
I am posting this message because I need to understand exactly what others (especially those in my state of Missouri) have experienced with some of the companies we will be dealing with. Any and all advice would be much appreciated!
On the Missouri Finance web site, I found a download link for all of the legal payday loan companies in my state. First off, my state is pretty lax about payday loans in general, but they do have a $500 cap and also emphatically state on the web site that "Such lenders must be licensed by the Division of Finance." Well, so far I have only found that 2 of the 5 lenders are even licensed in my state. The other 3 lenders also loaned us more than my state allows.
I wanted to verify with others that the 3 lenders I believe to be illegal are definitely illegal. I also wanted some advice about dealing with these companies. We have paid interest on all of the loans, but I do not have the exact interest amount at my disposal right now.
Here is who we owe and how much we owe in outstanding principle:
Legal companies:
Advance America (storefront) $500
Cashnetusa.com (Internet) $500
Suspected Illegal Companies:
Magnumcashadvance.com (Internet) $709
MyPayDayLoan.com (Internet) $600
DiscountAdvances.com (Internet) $630
Thank you so much for your advice about how to handle this mess or your input about the legality of these companies!
Starting in April, our son had several expensive medical needs. My husband's employer charges $900 a month to cover the family on group insurance. We cannot afford that much money for insurance, so none of us were insured when my son became ill. He was just determined to be disabled by the Social Security Office a couple of weeks ago and now qualifies for a free medical insurance program due to his disability. But since we had no medical insurance at the onset of this situation, we had to pay out of pocket for medical care when his illness started. Due to low financial resources, we felt at the time that we had no other choice but to take out a payday loan to pay for our son's doctor visits and medicine.
Before we knew what had happened, our one loan exploded into a total of 5 loans within a three month time period! If we now pay JUST THE INTEREST for these loans, it would take almost all of my husband's paycheck. And of course none of the lenders are sensitive at all about what this means to our family, why we had to take the loans out in the first place, or how many different loans we are juggling around. They are not willing to work out affordable payment arrangements with us.
Needless to say, with the stress of our son's illness and then the financial mess we found ourselves in, we have been strained beyond description. Thankfully I found this forum a couple of weeks ago. We just took the advice to plug up the holes so we can pay rent and buy food. We have stopped all ACH transactions with our bank and are beginning the rocky road of negotiation in order to get out of this mess. (Our bank tried to talk us into closing our account, but we read that in Missouri it is illegal to close an account when you owe outstanding payday loans.)
I am posting this message because I need to understand exactly what others (especially those in my state of Missouri) have experienced with some of the companies we will be dealing with. Any and all advice would be much appreciated!
On the Missouri Finance web site, I found a download link for all of the legal payday loan companies in my state. First off, my state is pretty lax about payday loans in general, but they do have a $500 cap and also emphatically state on the web site that "Such lenders must be licensed by the Division of Finance." Well, so far I have only found that 2 of the 5 lenders are even licensed in my state. The other 3 lenders also loaned us more than my state allows.
I wanted to verify with others that the 3 lenders I believe to be illegal are definitely illegal. I also wanted some advice about dealing with these companies. We have paid interest on all of the loans, but I do not have the exact interest amount at my disposal right now.
Here is who we owe and how much we owe in outstanding principle:
Legal companies:
Advance America (storefront) $500
Cashnetusa.com (Internet) $500
Suspected Illegal Companies:
Magnumcashadvance.com (Internet) $709
MyPayDayLoan.com (Internet) $600
DiscountAdvances.com (Internet) $630
Thank you so much for your advice about how to handle this mess or your input about the legality of these companies!
Request an EPP with the legal lenders, take care of those first.
Request an EPP with the legal lenders, take care of those first. On the other hand, CLICK HERE to find out how to deal with illegal lenders.
Send the 3 illegal ones an email of what you found on Division o
Send the 3 illegal ones an email of what you found on Division of Fiance site. They were not licensed and by overlending to you according to Missouri state law, it was an illegal contract to begin wil. You should only owe the original principal amount borrowed, minus any payments you have made to them.
