ACORN fights against predatory lending

ACORN members protested at the annual meeting of Dollar Financial, Money Mart's parent company, demanding reforms to its predatory practices.

Predatory lenders target low-income and minority homebuyers, capitalizing on buyers’ lack of understanding of the complicated transactions or use outright deception to close loans that inevitably lead to a loss of equity or foreclosure.

ACORN strives to end abuses by actively putting pressure on predatory lending offenders and advocating for legislation, regulation, education and research to end abusive lending practices.

While payday lenders claim their loans help people during one-time emergencies, ACORN contends that lenders prey on people in need, trapping them into deeper debt. The result is they are forced to take out additional loans. A recent study showed 90 percent of all payday loans are “predatory” because they are made to customers who take out five or more payday loans per year.

The typical interest rate on a payday loan from Money Mart is 456 percent. Money Mart is facing a class action lawsuit in Canada for charging interest rates of more than 1,000 percent.

ACORN members in the United States and Canada have waged an ongoing campaign against the high cost and abusive practices of payday lenders, including direct action protests against payday lenders at their offices and shareholder meetings, reports documenting the problem of payday lending, and efforts for stronger legislation on the local, state, and national level.