ohio laws on pay day loans

Johnson, Petraeus seek financial help for soldiers

The wife of retired Gen. David Petraeus said members of the military, their families and veterans often face the same enemy as other people: financial stress.

Holly Petraeus, assistant director of the Office of Servicemember Affairs at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, said payday lenders and others who offer quick, high-interest loans often locate near military bases.

They are “like bears at a trout stream,” Petraeus said.

She said some members of the military are at risk of losing their homes because of trouble with the mortgages that is often compounded by their transitory career.

She took part in a conference call Wednesday with Sen. Tim Johnson, D-S.D.

Petraeus said she was “honored” to be asked to join the call and spread the word about the issue and her agency.

She has three main goals:

* To ensure military personnel and families get consumer education to help them make informed decisions;

* To monitor the consumer complaints that come in to the government and the responses that are issued;

* And to coordinate with other federal agencies to help protect and inform military personnel, their families, retirees and veterans.

“I think a soldier who is preoccupied with financial troubles is not able to give 100 percent to their job,” Petraeus said. “And that can be dangerous both to them and the people with which they serve.”

She is working to educate and train members of the military, their families, retirees and veterans on how to better handle their finances. Many have problems with their home mortgages, she said, and are “under water,” with their homes worth less than what they owe.

“Certainly, a big concern for them is the housing market right now,” Petraeus said. “That’s an issue that is a real concern.”

She said some members of the military cannot refinance their homes since they often move from base to base.

Petraeus said she relocated 24 times in 37 years. Her husband David is a retired four-star general who now serves as the director of the CIA.

Mainstream banks also offer payday-style loans | Payday Loans UK ...

Tired of being buzzed into a storefront encased by bulletproof glass, Carl Martineau found a more dignified place to get a cash advance on his Social Security checks: a Berkeley branch of Wells Fargo Bank.

To California residents who just cannot make ends meet, the bank’s polished decor looks so much more inviting than the gritty payday loan shops that offer bruising triple-digit interest rates in the state’s poorest neighborhoods. However, mainstream financial institutions are increasingly peddling similar loans.

In California, payday lenders charge a 460 percent annual interest rate for a two-week cash advance on a borrower’s pay or benefit check. The terms at major commercial banks are only slightly better — an average of 365 percent for a 10-day cash advance.

“People who might know to stay away from payday lenders think that if a bank is offering it, it must be safe,” said Lauren Saunders, managing attorney for the National Consumer Law Center. Yet “a bank payday loan has all the same problems a traditional payday loan has. You’re getting sucked into the same debt trap.”

Bank officials say low-income customers at times desperately need the cash advances. But they emphasize that they do not advise repeat borrowing because of the admittedly high cost of the product — which banks say they do not heavily promote.

Yet Martineau, who lives in his Honda Civic and has relied on as many as five payday loans at a time from traditional

shops, sees the bank as a new salvation. He has arranged his first Wells Fargo advance to begin in December.

“Payday places have a lot of stigma. You really feel like you’re at the bottom of the barrel,” said Martineau, 59, who has struggled with manic depression most of his life. “Going to the bank is a lot more dignified. You don’t feel so ostracized.

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