Online Payday lenders only

Have you ever been contacted by a lender who says you owe them money, but you’re pretty darn sure you don’t? You’re not the only one.

According to the FTC, some payday lenders bought consumer financial information from third parties. Using that financial information, they created fake loan agreements, deposited money into people’s accounts, and made unauthorized withdrawals, all in violation of federal law.

What’s more, the lenders lied about the total cost of the loans — not only to consumers who had never asked for the loans in the first place, but also to some who may have authorized the loans. According to the FTC, the lenders told the consumers that their total payments on their loan would be the principal plus a onetime finance charge. Instead, the lenders withdrew biweekly automatic payments that didn’t go toward the principal. So, unless the consumers contested or paid down the loans, they were making interest-only payments indefinitely.

The lenders’ ill-gotten gain? A cool $49 million over 10 months, according to the FTC’s review of bank records.

None of this sits well with the FTC, which asked a federal district court to stop the practices and to preserve the possibility of providing refunds to the consumers.

Interesting facts

• Richard Nacht is the founder and CEO of Blogging Systems Group. He has twenty-five years in the marketing, finance and technology development industries. Nacht has focused his alleged talents on creating e-commerce strategies aimed at producing technologies that benefit the consumer and businesses.
  Nacht was a principal officer of a regional...
• Ivan Massow (born 11 September 1967) is a British entrepreneur and financial adviser. He founded in September 2011; a service which pays back 'trail' commissions - often thousands of pounds a year - to policy-holders themselves, instead of the IFAs who originally set the policies up. In May 2012 he launched...