Memo to Media: Beware of Shady Payday Industry Sources When Writing Your Stories
To: Interested Parties
From: Karl Frisch, Allied Progress
Date: Friday, September 29, 2017
Re: Beware of Questionable Payday Industry Sources
With the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) expected to unveil its long-awaited rule to reign in the worst abuses of payday, car title, and other short-term lenders, it is worth noting that many of the individuals and organizations who have opposed this rule in the past have demonstrated through their actions and misleading or false rhetoric that they are not trustworthy sources of information when it comes to these issues. Below you will find details about these figures with links to our vast and extensively fact-checked research archive. If you have questions or need additional information, please don’t hesitate to reach out.
Community Financial Services Association of America (CFSA)
Community Financial Services Association of America (CFSA) is the payday lending industry’s primary special interest trade association. The organization has spent millions of dollars lobbying and contributing to powerful politicians and currying favor with other powerful interests.
- PaydayLendingFacts.com Research Profile: Everything You Need to Know About CFSA
- Because of CFSA’s Actions, the CFPB Must Closely Scrutinize Comments Opposing Proposed Payday Lending Rule
- Payday Lenders Cry Crocodile Tears After CFPB Properly Categorizes Suspicious Public Comments Opposing Payday Rule
- CFPB Reality Check: Fact Checking the CFSA’s Lame Anti-CFPB Website
- Reality Check: Payday Trade Group Offers One Falsehood After Another to CBS News in Defense of Industry
- Reality Check: Payday Lender-Funded Poll Shows Borrowers Don’t Want Reform, Independent Poll Shows Exact Opposite
Dennis Shaul (CEO of Community Financial Services Association)
Dennis Shaul is the well-paid CEO of the payday lending industry’s special interest trade group, Community Financial Services Association of America (CFSA). Previously, Shaul worked for the House Financial Services Committee before making a bee line to the revolving door for a job that pays him more than $500,000 a year to shill for an industry he once helped to oversee.
- PaydayLendingFacts.com Research Profile: Dennis Shaul, The Revolving Doorman
- 8 Seconds of Honesty: Payday Trade Group Leader Admits His Members’ Rates Can Be “Too Excessive”
- Reality Check: Highly Paid Payday Industry Mouthpiece Who Opposes Reform Thinks CFPB’s Reform Efforts Are “Rushed”
- Reality Check: Chicken Little Payday Leader Says Sky’s Falling and CFPB Is to Blame, Not His Loans
- Money Talks: Meet the Payday Industry Cronies Testifying at Today’s Sham Congressional Hearing
- Payday Honcho Caught Citing Academic Research Paid for by Industry Front Group
Consumer Credit Research Foundation (CCRF)
Consumer Credit Research Foundation (CCRF) is a payday lending industry-funded front group that has commissioned pro-industry academic research at universities around the country. In 2015, Campaign for Accountability released an explosive report revealing how the industry-backed CCRF finances and influences “academic research,” dictating edits and encouraging omissions of information that might paint payday lending in a negative light.
Hilary Miller (Payday Industry Attorney and CCRF Chairman)
Hilary Miller is president of the Payday Loan Bar Association and the chairman of Consumer Credit Research Foundation (CCRF). He is a lawyer for payday lender Dollar Financial Group (which funds CCRF) and its subsidiaries and has been a signatory on the SEC forms of dozens of companies, many of them payday lenders. Privately, Miller concedes “very few” borrowers repay their loans, writing in a private email, “consumers mostly either roll over or default, very few actually repay their loans in cash on the due date.”
- PaydayLendingFacts.com Research Profile: Hillary Miller, The Academic Deceptor
- Don’t Be Fooled: New CEI Payday Report Authored by Disgraced Payday Industry Attorney Caught Manipulating Academic Study
- Why is Hilary Hiding HIS Emails?
- Advocates Push Back Against Deceptive, Industry- Funded Academic “Research” on Payday Lending
Jamie Fulmer (Mouthpiece for Payday Lending Giant, Advance America)
Jamie Fulmer is a prominent payday lending mouthpiece and prolific tweeter who openly admits that payday loans are risky. He also says that consumers find themselves trapped in debt cycles because they like payday loans so much. Seriously.
- PaydayLendingFacts.com Research Profile: Jamie Fulmer, The Payday Mouthpiece
- Payday Spokesman Who Once Labeled Industry Risky, Claims Borrowers Have Few Complaints
- Reality Check: Advance America VP Says “It’s Impossible to Call Us a Predatory Lender”
Credit Union National Association (CUNA)
The Credit Union National Association (CUNA), a financial services trade group, is led by former Rep. Jim Nussle (R-IA). A prominent opponent of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) and many of its reforms, CUNA has been critical of the Bureau’s reform efforts on payday lending. Left out of the conversation is the fact that Nussle took $1.43 million from CFPB-regulated industries when he was in Congress.
Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-TX), Chairman of House Financial Services Committee
Under Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-TX), the House Financial Services Committee has become an industry revolving door with many staffers entering from or leaving for jobs in the financial industry and either investing in or taking junkets paid for by the very industry they are meant to oversee. Hensarling is a steadfast defender of predatory lenders – he’s taken thousands of dollars
- Hensarling’s Revolving Door: How the House Financial Services Committee Has Become an Industry Revolving Door with Many Staffers Either Investing in or Having Taken Junkets from the Financial Industry
- Cheaper By The Dozen: How Twelve Members of Congress Were Showered with Campaign Cash by Payday Lenders Just Before and Soon After Taking Official Actions To Benefit The Industry
- Wells Fargo Stashed $560k in (Campaign) Accounts of Members of Congress Seeking to Cripple Consumer Agency
- Shot & Chaser: So… About the Congressional Hearings Into the Equifax Data Breach
- Committee GOP Takes $32 Million from Financial Industry, Passes Hensarling’s Wall Street Giveaway “Financial CHOICE Act”
- What’s Hensarling Hiding? Powerful Chairman Pushing Treasury Secretary Mnuchin to Skirt Open Records Laws
- Hensarling, Industry, and GOP Campaign Committee Demonstrate Contempt for Consumers in Baseless Attacks on CFPB and Its Director
Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer (R-MO)
Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer (R-MO) is the payday lending industry’s favorite member of Congress. He has taken at least $63,500 from payday lenders during his congressional career. One year he even addressed the annual payday lender’s conference at a California luxury golf resort via pre-recorded video since he couldn’t be there in person. On several occasions, Luetkemeyer has accepted thousands of dollars in campaign cash from payday lenders just before or soon after taking official actions to benefit the industry
- Favorite Congressman of Predatory Lenders Says Elizabeth Warren Should Be Neutered
- Wells Fargo Stashed $560k in (Campaign) Accounts of Members of Congress Seeking to Cripple Consumer Agency
- Cheaper By The Dozen: How Twelve Members of Congress Were Showered with Campaign Cash by Payday Lenders Just Before and Soon After Taking Official Actions To Benefit The Industry
Rep. Alcee Hastings (D-FL)
No other Democrat in Congress has taken more money from the payday lending industry than Rep. Alcee Hastings (D-FL) – few Republicans have either. He’s even taken official action to benefit the payday lending industry shortly before and after taking thousands in campaign contributions from the industry. In fact, he took $2,500 from a payday lending industry PAC the day after he signed on to co-sponsor legislation that would benefit the industry.
- Florida Progressives Support CFPB’s Payday Reforms, Apparently Alcee Hastings Didn’t Get the Memo
- Cheaper By The Dozen: How Twelve Members of Congress Were Showered with Campaign Cash by Payday Lenders Just Before and Soon After Taking Official Actions To Benefit The Industry
- Reality Check: Rep. Alcee Hastings Writes Misleading Column Supporting Disastrous “Florida Model” of Payday Lending
- A Florida Plan: How The Payday Lending Industry Bought Florida’s Political Establishment
- Payday Industry Front Group’s “Voices of Support” Took at Least $492,000 from Payday Lenders
Other Prominent Payday Lending Figures Often Quoted by Media
- The Noted Racist and Godfather of Payday Lending: W. Allan Jones of Check Into Cash
- The Inside Man: Patrick O’Shaughnessy of Advance America
- The Lifetime Banned Man: Ian MacKechnie of Amscott Financial
- The Shapeshifter: Ken Rees of Elevate and Think Finance
- The Payday Jet Setter: Billy Webster of Advance America
- The Racket Researcher: Melissa Soper of Speedy Cash
- The Proud Payday Lender: Kim Gardner of Cash USA
- The Family Affair: David Davis of Check ‘n Go
- The Legitimate Businessman: Rod Aycox of Select Management Resources
- The See No Evil-Doer: D. Lynn DeVault of Jones Management Services
- The Silver Spoon: Tracy Rawle of Check City
- The Subprime Lender: C. Dan Adams of The Capital Corporation
- The Book Ban Man: Darrin Andersen of QC Holdings
- The Aptly Named: Kip Cashmore of USA Cash Services
- The Shell Gamer: Dennis Bassford of MoneyTree, Inc.
- The Bad Boss: Donald Gayhardt of Speedy Cash
- The Watergator: Ted Saunders of Community Choice Financial
Other Groups That Have Defended Payday Lenders
- US Consumer Coalition: Shady Front Group Run by GOP Operatives, Paid for by Corporate Donors
- Protecting America’s Consumers: The Shady Industry Front Group and its Untrustworthy Leadership
- Hispanic Chamber of Commerce: Payday-Funded Group Cites Payday-Funded Poll to Argue Against CFPB’s Payday Rule
Visit PaydayLendingFacts.org For More Research
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