Despite heavy lobbying from the industry in favor of maintaining consumer choice, the Beaverton, Ore., City Council appears ready to regulate area payday loan businesses.

The Oregonian reports that the council heard from owners and managers of three payday loan companies during a public hearing Monday night, each of which has been pushing hard for a proposed ordinance to be shelved.

"Let consumers make their own informed choices," urged Money Mart district manager Nina Hamman, who runs one of the company's six stores in the Portland area.

But Angela Martin of Our Oregon, a non-profit group that focuses on tax and economic fairness, told the council how lenders use payday advances to trap customers in a pattern of escalating debt that can be extremely difficult to escape.

"In its present form, payday loans don't represent helpful credit," Martin said.

Councilors will vote next month on Beaverton's proposed ordinance, which would be similar to those adopted by Portland, Gresham, Troutdale and Silverton. The local ordinances extend regulations on bad credit payday loans by allowing customers to rescind loans within 24 hours, and by requiring repayment of at least 25 percent of a loan before it is renewed.

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In an effort to add more business to its network, popular payday loan company 200Cash.com, Inc., is launching a new affiliate program.

Under this aggressive marketing scheme, 200Cash.com will offer newer, higher incentives. Collaborations will be sought with new and more promising marketing affiliates across the lead-generating industry. The company is confident that it will achieve a larger market share as a result.

The Internet will continue to be a vital avenue in the company's efforts to make instant payday loans available to people who need the products most, while at the same time providing an opportunity for business affiliates to earn their share of profits. High quality, targeted traffic will be driven to the company's website and profits shared through pro-active campaigns.

According to the business plan, a relationship between the company and its affiliates will allow it to reach niche areas and effectively leverage resources to offer its quick and easy payday advances to people it would not have been able to access otherwise.

For better or worse, the explosion of short-term payday advance loans in recent years has illustrated the widespread demand for easy, quick cash for hundreds of thousands of consumers seeking to deal with short-term monetary urgencies.

H&R Block is no stranger to offering enticements to get new clients. The largest U.S. tax preparer has spent millions fighting lawsuits claiming its "refund-anticipation" loans take advantage of low-income taxpayers by exorbitant high fees.

But there are lines the company says it will not cross. CEO Mark Ernst called on his top two competitors - Jackson Hewitt Tax Service Inc. and Liberty Tax Service - to stop selling what he calls pay-stub loans, unsecured cash loans made before a person has filed their taxes, saying they threaten the reputation of the entire industry.

"The economics of the product have more in common with payday lending than refund lending," Ernst said, referring to payday loans, often criticized for creating spiraling interest and debt.

"While there's no question that there's a need for unsecured credit, the association of these high-cost loans with tax preparation generally is not good for consumers and clearly takes the professional tax services industry into a direction that we should all wish to avoid."

It probably doesn't help that Ernst estimates the competitors' use of pay-stub loans contributed (along with myriad technical issues) to H&R Block losing around 250,000 clients in January.

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As low fee payday loans take hold in Great Britain, at least one consumer group is trying to stop the spread of corrupt lenders. Yes, the Scottish Illegal Money Unit is on the case across Glasgow, currently probing 94 cases of questionable loan practices.

The seven-member team's achievements were recently  trumpeted at the Trading Standards Institute's (TSI) conference in London. The payday loan team has used the law to seize 500,000 pounds worth  of illegal lenders' assets.

Ron Gainsford, chief executive of TSI, said: "The units have had remarkable success - not only catching some of these sharks but also warning people not to fall into their trap."

Not shockingly, these investingations have found that illegal money lenders and payday advance lenders target vulnerable people, such as single mothers, drug addicts and those with mental health problems. The worst use threats or violence to force their victims to pay up at extortionate rates.

Malcolm Hurlston, chairman of debt charity the Consumer Credit Counselling Service, said:

"Loan sharks are the scourge of society … We would like to see financially respectable creditors making products available for the less well-off … They put plenty of effort into the wealthy - let's see them work on the poor."

As Americanprogress.org points out, the current debate within Congress to raise the federal minimum wage from $5.15 to $7.25 would have a far-reaching impact. Those that have been relying on faxless payday loans, for example, may have an opportunity to make payments on their own.

The recent explosion of the payday loan industry has mostly impacted low-wage families. Thanks to high fees and exorbitant interest rates, these cash advances often trap many low-wage earners and their loved ones. Now, raising the minimum wage could increase families’ ability to save and help put a dent in their debt on their own. In other words:

Rethinking the low-wage structure is not just about allowing families to better afford life’s essentials; it’s also about protecting them from a debt trap, via online payday loans, that could forever hold them back from achieving the American dream.

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With names such as Doctor Check, Money Mart and Cash Cow, payday loan firms say their high-interest products fill a niche and feed a growing demand.

Critics of the short-term lending business are not buying it.

"Payday loan companies say their growth indicates there is a big demand for their services," said Jordan Ash, Director of Financial Issues for the national consumer group ACORN. "The same could be said for people buying crack cocaine. Lots of folks buy crack, but that doesn't mean there's a legitimate need for it."

ACORN claims a vast majority of stores are placed in minority communities, preying on the poor and elderly and dragging low-income wage earners and people who rely on monthly government assistance into deeper cycles of consumer debt.

Someone on a fixed income can take out a payday loan to cover an extra expense — unexpected medical bills, perhaps. Two weeks later, the borrower is forced to pay back the loan, usually less than $500, in full and with substantial interest. But their fixed expenses mean another personal loan may be required as soon as the first is paid off.

Thus, they become ensnared in the payday loan trap, say consumer advocates. But others, like Steven Schlein, spokesman for the Consumer Financial Services Association, describe ACORN's position as unfounded and inflammatory.

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As the need for cash loans increases around the country, one payday loan company after another is adding new technologies to its services. 

The most recent to enter this new age? My Payday Loan. The service continues to develop and offer additional benefits to its quick payday loan customers, such as the recent addition of an RSS (Really Simple Syndication) news feed to the site that enables users to keep up to date with the latest developments of the business.

Really Simple Syndication allows online users to subscribe to their choice of content sources from across the web. This is most frequently done through personalised home pages, but is becoming more common across the net as people source content relevant to them.

In this instance, the weekly bad credit payday loan news service provides its customers and frequent web visitors with topical stories on UK consumer finance news including the continual increase in “hidden” bank charges. The inclusion of RSS on the My Payday Loan website means that regular visitors to the payday loan news page can keep themselves up to date with releases as they arrive.

Nick Auchincloss, Head of Corporate Development at My Payday Loan says: “As a company, My Payday Loan, strives to keep at the forefront of technology, meaning we have more to deliver to our loyal customer base. We have found an increasing interest from our customers to keep up to date with loan news from the UK, especially when it outlines the benefits of using a payday loan as opposed to, say, unauthorised bank charges.

Using RSS allows our website users to keep up to date as more articles come out."

The editorial page of Sunday's Wichita Eagle talks about the recent payday loan controversy in the Sunflower State, one that has exploded so rapidly and caused such a stir that many consider it a surreal scene.

Earlier this month, a Sunflower Community Action meeting about the dangers of payday loans was crashed by hundreds of people bused in by national lender LoanMax, which paid each of its “supporters” $100 and gave them T-shirts and free box lunches in exchange for showing up.

Bribing these warm bodies to show up in support for the industry, is a tactic that reveals just how low LoanMax and other payday lenders go.

When their cash-cow businesses are threatened, they will do whatever it takes to protect them, even if that means resorting to measures like these.

State lawmakers should regulate these multiplying businesses, and there is no time like the present. Ideas include limiting people to two fast cash loans each and requiring a statewide database be set up to keep track of payday lenders and borrowers.

Or, as some argue, are the ones being preyed upon getting what they deserve for being so fiscally irresponsible? Is the problem really the lenders, or the societal factors which force people to consider payday advances in the first place? Check out the newspaper's blog to see what readers have to say about this controversial issue.

 
Twice a month, the Northeastern Indiana Better Business Bureau pens a consumer advice column. This week's edition focused on a payday loan alternative: credit counseling agencies.

As gas prices continue to climb, groceries rise and interest rates creep up, some people are feeling the squeeze. They are probably considering the use of same day payday loans. The BBB, however, advises consumers who are sinking into debt to take proactive action by working with an experienced credit counseling organization instead.

Here's how it works: A trained and certified credit counselor will analyze your income, expenses and debts; discuss your current situation; and make recommendations to address your financial problems. It's easy to spend some time online researching your options and selecting a reputable agency.

Your goal should be to find a credit counseling agency that has satisfied clients, offers personalized service from trained counselors, can educate you how to make appropriate financial choices and will provide you with tools to achieve financial security. You may, of course, also ask these experts about their views on personal loans.

Check the agency out with the Better Business Bureau (www.bbb.org), state attorney general and your local consumer protection agency. Any reputable credit counseling agency should send you free information about its services without requiring you to provide any details about your situation. If not, consider that a red flag and go elsewhere for help.

From one payday loan company to others around the Net, here's an opportunity to experiment with breakthrough technology. 

Those looking to add sub prime lending/payday loan lending capabilities to an existing business - yet are unsure if the product will be received well by clientele - Cash Now presents a unique try-before-you-buy program. You can test out new payday loan software for 12 months at about 70% off the purchase price.

At the end of the year, users may purchase the system at the current pricing. Cash Now’s platform is entirely built on the Microsoft ASP platform, an effective means toward a reliable, faxless payday loan ends.

Consumers, of course, would benefit from the ease with which they could submit an online application for payday loans.