California Payday Advance Lender Prohibited from Lending
California Corporations Commissioner Preston DuFauchard has determined that Margaret Diego (dba The Cash Center Inc., The Loan Center Inc. and TLC) willfully violated the California Deferred Deposit Transaction Law (CDDTL).
Diego has been ordered to desist and refrain from violating the law, ordered to pay penalties, and the personal loans in question have been declared void. Diego has operated The Cash Center Inc., a payday lender in the city of Reseda in Los Angeles County, without the required license from the California Department of Corporations.
The investigation by the Department found that Margaret Diego willfully violated sections 23024, 23036, and 23037 of the law by entering into eighty seven (87) deferred deposit transactions with at least 13 separate consumers, in some cases while existing faxless payday loans were still outstanding with those same consumers.
The Commissioner also determined that Diego failed to preserve necessary records of transactions and that The Cash Center Inc., The Loan Center Inc, and TLC were operating without a license from the Department as required under the CDDTL.
The Cash Center was ordered to stop operating a payday advance loan lending business without a license. Additionally, as part of this action, the Commissioner ordered that 87 illegal deferred deposit transactions arranged by Diego, totaling $21,870, be voided. Furthermore, the Commissioner has determined that Diego shall be required to pay a penalty of $35,000 ($2,500 per citation) to the Department.
The Cash Center’s main office is in the city of Reseda in Los Angeles County. The violations occurred at the Reseda location and were discovered by a Department of Corporations examiner.
As defined by state law, a deferred deposit transaction is a written transaction whereby one person gives funds to another person upon receipt of a personal check and it is agreed that the personal check shall not be deposited until a later date. These loans are sometimes referred to as “payday advances” or “payday loans.”