Protest Against Payday Loan, Cash Advance Lenders Takes Place in PA
At 9:30 a.m. today, shareholders arriving for Dollar Financial’s annual meeting were greeted by several dozen inflatable sharks and people in shark costumes as part of a protest organized by ACORN against the predatory faxless payday loans made by the company’s subsidiaries Money Mart and Loan Mart.
After the demonstration, three of the protestors, including a Money Mart customer from Toronto, Canada, entered the meeting using shareholder proxies address the cash loan company’s executives directly.
The event took place at The Desmond Hotel and Conference Center on 1 Liberty Blvd. in Malvern, Pa.
Reasons behind the payday loan protest: The typical interest rate on cash advance loans from Money Mart is 456 percent, but can be even higher. The company is facing a class action lawsuit in Canada for charging interest rates over 1,000 percent.
While Money Mart says payday loans help people in a one-time emergency, ACORN charges that payday cash advances are set up so people can’t pay them back and thus are forced to repeatedly renew the loans and pay additional interest.
“Money Mart wants to sink us even deeper into the debt trap and keep us owing them for the rest of our lives,” said national ACORN President Maude Hurd.
Money Mart is one of the largest payday lenders in the U.S. and is the largest payday lender in Canada.