Has anyone tried bringing criminal charges?

Date: Sun, 01/20/2013 - 20:30

Submitted by Colonel K
on Sun, 01/20/2013 - 20:30

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I live in New York state.

I know it is listed in multiple places on this forum that payday loans are illegal in NY. My research shows this is not 100% accurate. There are no specific laws in NY against payday loans. However, under both NY civil law and NY criminal law, there are laws against charging usurious interest rates.

In NY state, it is a felony to charge more than 25% annual interest on any loan.

Most of the payday loan applications I signed had arbitration provisions, provisions against participating in class actions and statements that the law of only the companies' home states applied. That's how they fight back.

However, what if I were to go to the district attorney and file a complaint based on the criminal law, that they committed a crime when they charged me 600% interest?

Typically, criminal defendants in fraud cases have to pay restitution. I could conceivably get my interest payments refunded that way.

Has anyone tried this? Does anyone think this would be successful?

Whatever you say could work,

Whatever you say could work, provided that these lenders can actually be physically rounded up. Most of them are tribal (these people are immune to Federal and state laws) and offshore (good luck with the NY DA trying to have a Belizean extradite) lenders.

Ummm... instead of looking at it in this roundabout way, you could ponder a couple of other things a) Look up the legal provisions for deferred deposits and small loans, b) If lenders are not licensed with the DFI, they cannot legally lend within NYS. And if payday lending in not illegal in NY (per say like you state), then how is it that CSOs like CashNetUSA can run their business there while Cash Taxi and Net Credit cannot even get a license?

lrhall41

Submitted by Steve Barris on Sun, 01/20/2013 - 20:45

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