If predatory lenders had a trade publication – say, “Usury Today” – they’d undoubtedly rank Virginia near the top in annual roundups of the best places in the nation to do business.

Although dozens of states have severely restricted the activities of storefront loan sharks in recent years, the Old Dominion remains ever hospitable.

Triple-digit interest rates – scorned by the Pentagon, consumer advocacy groups and most state legislatures – are still welcome here.

Last year, 220 percent was the average annual interest rate in Virginia for folks who borrowed money using the titles to their automobiles as collateral. For borrowers who used paychecks as collateral, the average annual interest rate was 282 percent.

Repeated efforts to cap interest rates at a more modest 36 percent have failed in the General Assembly, thanks in no small part to $1.4 million in donations to lawmakers by the industry between 2007 and 2011 and tens of thousands of dollars in contributions ahead of a vote this year.

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1. Stop any electronic access that the lender has to your bank account. This may require sending the lender a letter withdrawing ACH authorization. You may need to also alert your bank or credit union that you have revoked such rights from the lender. If you have not paid back what you borrowed from the lender, make alternate arrangements to send payments to them by money order.
2. If debiting from your bank account doesn’t stop, first open a new account at a different bank or credit union, then close the account tied to the lender. Your balance cannot be in the negative to do this.
3. If you receive harassment calls, file complaints with the Virginia Bureau of Financial Institutions, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and the Federal Trade Commission. If Harassment is particularly bad or by people you did not borrow from, it may also be a good idea to file with the Internet Crime Complaint Center.
4. If you have questions or are unsure of next steps, call our Hotline if you need help with internet payday loans: 866-830-4501

U.S. regulators and Congress are scrutinizing partnerships between Native Americans and outside investors in online payday lending businesses accused of exploiting tribal sovereignty to evade state consumer-protection laws.

The push has divided Native American groups, with critics of payday lending opposing tribal involvement in the businesses, which charge interest rates as high as 521 percent for short-term loans. Other Indian groups, formed to represent the nascent industry in Washington, are pushing back against the regulators.

Charles Moncooyea, vice chairman of the Otoe-Missouria Tribe, called the interest of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau “a declaration of war” and vowed to fight federal intervention into the new businesses.

“The fact is our tribe – and tribes nationwide – benefit from the positive economic impact from these and other businesses activities, with revenues directed towards such critical needs as medical care, education and many other basic necessities,” Moncooyea said in a written statement.

The partnerships have drawn the attention of federal regulators largely because of sovereign immunity, the legal doctrine that restricts state interference in tribal affairs.

“It’s a model that could go into any kind of area where the states regulate,” said Colorado Attorney General John Suthers.

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In the business known as payday lending, one of the biggest players lends no money at all.

MoneyMutual.com promises loans of as much as $1,000 to people in need of quick cash, advertising widely on TV and online with former talk show host Montel Williams as its public face. In small type at the bottom of the screen, the company disclaims that it is “not a lender.”

MoneyMutual.com generates leads for firms specializing in short-term, high-interest loans. It’s the most prominent of a new breed of Internet middlemen who’ve prospered as the $32 billion payday loan market migrates from storefronts to the Web.

Lead generators typically take applications on their websites and then immediately auction the prospects to lenders.

As the business grows, regulators have been reviewing complaints from consumers that their financial data has been misused or stolen after entering the auction system.

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The nation’s new consumer protection agency is about to start naming names, albeit in baby steps.

Despite vocal opposition from the financial industry, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau on Tuesday launched a website that allows consumers to browse through complaints filed against large financial companies.

Website users can see the name of the company targeted by each complaint, the nature of the issue, the company response — including timeliness — and the zip code of the complainer.  Users can also generate charts showing which banks attract the most complaints, which issues are hardest to resolve and which regions of the country seem most irritating by bank practices.

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Major banks including JPMorgan Chase & Co., Bank of America Corp. and Citigroup Inc. were the subjects of the largest number of complaints to the U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in 2011, according to data obtained through a public records request.

Bank of America accounted for about 13 percent of the 13,210 complaints, mostly about credit cards, to the bureau between July 21 and Dec. 31, 2011. JPMorgan and Citigroup each accounted for about 11 percent, Capital One Financial Corp. represented about 8 percent, and Wells Fargo & Co. accounted for about 5 percent. The number of complaints was roughly consistent with the size of the banks’ credit card business.

Complaints filed since June 1, 2012 will be made available to the public on its website today, the consumer bureau said in an e-mailed statement. Complaints from before then will be included later this year, it said.

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The U.S. Consumer Financial Protection Bureau today announced it is seeking public comments as part of an inquiry into financial exploitation of senior citizens.

“Older Americans have lost billions of dollars to the silent crime of financial exploitation,” the bureau’s director, Richard Cordray, said in an e-mailed statement. “Our older adult population is growing every year, which makes it even more critical that we study this issue.”

The bureau hired Hubert H. “Skip” Humphrey III, a former Minnesota attorney general, to head its Office of Older Americans in October. Cordray, a former Ohio attorney general, said their experiences suggest elder financial abuse is a serious issue.

“Get us together and we can tell you horrifying stories about these crimes – people looted of their pension benefits, or talked into investing much of their life savings in endless varieties of fraudulent schemes,” Cordray said at a White House event to mark World Elder Abuse Awareness Day. The victims often end up poor and “in a nursing home at the expense of American taxpayers.”

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In an effort to protect West Virginians from the abusive and unlawful harassment and triple-digit interest rates of a predatory out-of-state title loan company, West Virginia Attorney General Darrell McGraw today filed suit in the Circuit Court of Jefferson County against Virginia-based Fast Auto Loans, Inc., its parent company, Community Loans of America, headquartered in Atlanta, and its owner Robert I. Reich.

Attorney General McGraw’s lawsuit asks for a permanent injunction preventing Fast Auto from making unlawful threats of criminal prosecution and halting the company’s collection of excess charges, failure to follow the law in seizing consumers’ vehicles, extreme methods of coercion, and other deceptive, unfair and illegal debt collection practices. The suit also charges that Fast Auto Loans violated several state consumer protection laws and asks for civil penalties as well as restitution and refunds for consumers.

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This is the first full year of numbers for car title lenders in Virginia.

• We now have 378 car title lender locations (267 payday loan locations)
• 128,446 loans made
• 105,542 borrowers
• Average loan amount $976
• Average loan term is 306 days
• 8,378 cars repossessed
• 4,910 cars sold after repossessed

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