The New York Times recently reported that Goodwill Industries, in collaboration with Prospera Credit Union has opened payday loan operations in some stores.
The Times story focused on Appleton, Wisconsin, a town of 70,000 people, five McDonald’s, three Pizza Huts, four Starbucks, and 19 payday-loan stores. Peggy Truckey owed nearly $1,300 to four of these payday loaners and was paying about $600 per month in finance fees.
At the Goodwill thrift store, Truckey got a payday loan at half the finance charge and, more importantly, got help converting her payday debts to a single one-year loan with monthly payments of just $129. Her one year loan carries an interest rate of only 18.9 percent, compared with the 572 percent she was paying to the payday companies.
Ken Eiden, president of Prospera, said: “Our goal is to change behavior, to interrupt the cycle of debt.”
Some consumer groups have been critical of non-profit payday loans programs, like Goodwill’s GoodMoney program. Uriah King, a policy associate at the Center for Responsible Lending, said “it’s still the same debt trap.” Prospera countered that borrowers are taking fewer loans through their program than they did through commercial lenders.
This entry was posted on Sunday, September 2nd, 2007 at 3:44 pm and is filed under Bankruptcy and Predatory Lending. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.
Question: I am in ch.13. My house is going into foreclosure. My husband is disabled(no income) and i am now on unemployment receiving $500.00 bi-weekly.
i cant keep up with my payments and have since moved in w/my daughter. Is it possible to switch to ch.7?