Question 1: “Predatory lending is any lending practice that imposes unfair or abusive loan terms on a borrower” (Fay, n.d.). Predatory lenders can take the form of mortgage loans, payday loans, car loans, and any type of consumer debt. One example of predatory lending would be places that offer services such as payday loans. Pay day loans are short-term cash loans that the borrower has to pay back with their next paycheck. On average people borrow $350 for a two-week term. The borrower would have to pay a loan fee as well as an annual percentage rate between 390% and 550% making it almost impossible for the borrower to pay off their loan. This will end up keeping the borrower in a cycle of debt (Fay, n.d.). Typically you will find predatory lenders in low socioeconomic neighborhoods targeting the poor, minorities, and elderly. This is because people who live in these neighborhoods are most likely not going to be able to get help from banks, because they either do not make enough money, they have bad credit, or other factors. So during a time of crisis people will resort to these types of lenders because they feel like they have no choice. Often times they are not educated on the way the loans work so they do not realize what they are getting themselves into. Question 2: For those who are involved in running these lending companies or those who see nothing wrong with them, they see it as a way to help someone in need when no one else will. The people who are running the
The world is full of financial hardship, and American society possesses a great deal of controversy concerning lending. Unfortunately, short term lending, such as payday loans or title loans, creates a structural void within American society. According to Wikipedia, “Structural inequality is defined as a condition where one category of people are attributed an unequal status in relation to other categories of people” (wilipedia.com). When working class Americans apply for a payday, the unequal status between upper and middle class possess a bigger separation financially. The never-ending process of a short term financial fix becomes lifelong debt. Thus, middle class society becomes lower class society. Eventually, working class society will struggle to say above the poverty line. In addition to an imbalance in society classes, short term lending targets consumers who life paycheck to paycheck. In Rigging the Game by Michael Schwalbe, the author explains the reproduction of inequalities. Schwalbe discusses the different kinds of capitals human, social, and cultural (10). The three capitals unknowingly shape Americans social system. Many businesses capitalize on these capitals knowing no laws or regulation exists to stop them from capitalizing on individuals who no faults of their own were born into these unfair capitals. As a result, short term lenders possess the ability to have extremely high interest rates and outrageous fine print penalties because there is little
The main problem that most critics have with payday lenders is that many people recycle their loans and become trapped in cycles of debt. Some people use the loans irresponsibly or get loans from multiple lenders to buy things that they don't need or to enable unhealthy personal habits. These loans were never intended to be used in these ways, so some people get in trouble. The same holds true for all kinds of
Predatory lending has caused many conflicts in the American society. Victims who fall for predatory lending are
I am going to look at one of America's most resilient industries. The Predatory lending better known as Payday loans, and even sometimes pass as car lenders and mortgage lenders. One in twenty households have taken one out at some point. And is estimated to be a nine billion dollar industry. With payday loan outlets are all over the place. The ethical question comes into place. When you question whether if receiving one of these loans can be a benefit or drag the person signing into the loan deeper in debt. Im very interested on this subject because I believe that payday loans can be very useful and benefit the general public, if we put in place very specific laws and restrain what lenders can do making sure that there is
The real estate industry is thriving with approximately sixty-eight percent of all Americans being homeowners. With low interest rates, 1st time home buyer down payment assistance programs, and government funded educational opportunities (i.e. the Home Ownership Center of Greater Cincinnati), the real estate and mortgage lending industries will continue to flourish. However, there are some unethical lending practices that are threatening the housing industry as a whole.
Through the use of false promises and sneaky sales tactics, borrowers are convinced to sign a loan contract before they have had a chance to review the paperwork. If the borrower is allowed the chance to go over the fine details of the contract, a significant amount of the borrowers targeted by predatory lenders haven 't been updated enough to really understand what they are signing. In most cases, sub-prime borrowers do not hire attorneys to represent them. They either don 't have the cash flow to do so, or they are not made aware of the opportunity. An example of the predatory lending practice of high interest rate financing is as follows:
If a poor family of five suddenly has their refrigerator break they will think that their only option is to take out a short term loan to be able to afford to fix it. They end up paying ridiculously high interest rates over a long span of time, forcing them to pay over five times what they needed in the first place in some occasions. Another example of this is financing offered by major companies, an average iPad would normally cost under six hundred dollars upfront, but the company Apple offers a family looking to purchase one a weekly payment plan for a year and a half. After seventy-eight weeks the family can end up paying just slightly under two thousand dollars for the same iPad. The poor often don’t trust banks either, this is because of a combination of factors. They take their loans out at banks if they’re lucky enough to be approved, with APR, annual percentage rates, as high as six hundred precent. Even though these loans are meant to take weeks at a time at most to repay, researcheers have found the on average poor families take up to nine of these loans and end up being indebted for over a year! They do not read or understand the terms and conditions that they decide to sign. Banks also charge overdraft fees for the poor who already had trouble managing their money, as well as banking fees if they cannot meet the monthly minimum account balance.
As competition increased between savings and loans, banks, and credit unions, banks were eager to attract loan applicants in order to increase revenue and compete with other financial institutions. Jack S. Light, the author of Increasing Competition between Financial Institutions, said in his book that “commercial banks are diversifying their assets toward higher percentages of mortgages and consumer loans, and thrift institutions are seeking authority to diversify their loan structures. Moreover, mounting pressures are working toward, and have partially succeeded in, changing the authority of thrifts to include third-party payment accounts similar to commercial bank demand deposits.” (Light) Because of this eagerness to bring in new clients, they were willing to give out loans without checking into the financial stability of the borrower or the business that was requesting the loan. Unfortunately since the banks didn 't look into their clients’ financials adequately, many clients defaulted on their loans because they could not afford the payments, especially when balloon payments started.
The purpose of this report is to inform you, the RSGs, about how the ethics of payday loans should be considered before moving on with your project. After you raised many concerns about whether or not ethics are an issue, Vice President Bette Davis decided to bring the CRC in to help out here. Davis wanted me to research the issue of the ethics of payday loans, and report back to her on with the information I found in order to help her decide how to resolve the issues between the RSGs. I first wrote a memo to Davis on how the CRC could help with doing the research and writing the report. I then wrote an annotated bibliography to Davis explaining the sources that I would be using and how they would be beneficial in the final report. I then presented to you about how this would help you resolve your issues. After you approved of what I had to say, I wrote an outline for the final report and submitted it to Davis. After completing all of my research, I have come to my conclusion and will inform you about it in this report. It will help you to come to a consensus on whether or not the ethics of payday loans are an issue.
Anyone can be a predatory lender, just because one is dressed in a nice fashioned suit does not necessarily imply that they have a career or in this matter be willingly helpful people. A face can be as deceitful as the clothing of a person. In the article “Predatory
The primary importance that Constance Ruzich and A.J. Grant attach to metaphor, particularly in the metaphor of predatory lending which is prevalent throughout banking and mortgage industries, is that it aids in the facilitation of understanding. Metaphors allow a person to replace something that is incomprehensible or difficult to understand with something that is considerably more familiar, and therefore easier to understand. Consequently, metaphors become an integral part of communication of ideas since they enable people to relate a relatively foreign concept to one that they can better grasp since they already know it. This notion is especially important in regards to a concept such as formal lending, which largely lacks a formal, standardized definition according to Ruzich and Grant's journal article entitled "Predatory Lending and the Devouring of the American Dream". The authors sufficiently explicate this idea in the following quotation. "When California attempted to devise a legal definition of the term"¦consumer groups argued both that the definition was too vague and that it needed to be broadened (Sichelman). Without a legal definition, the metaphorical implications of the term become even more significant" (Ruzich & Grant, 2009, 627-628). By stating that the "metaphorical" connotations of predatory lending are "more significant" due to the fact that there is not a legal definition of this phrase, the authors are placing a greater emphasis
The financial crisis emerged because of an excessive deregulation of business operation of financial institutions and of abusing the securitization mechanism in the absence of clearly defined rules to regulate this area in the American mortgage market (Krstić, Jemović, & Radojičić, 2013). Deregulation gives larger banks the opportunity to loosen underwriting lender guidelines and generate increase opportunity for homeownership (Kroszner & Strahan, 2013). After deregulation, banks utilized many versions of mortgage loans. Mortgage loans such as subprime and Alternative-A paper loans became available for borrowers challenged to find mortgage lenders before deregulation (Elbarouki, 2016; Palmer, 2015). The housing market has been severely affected by fluctuating interest rates and the requirement of large down payment (Follain, & Giertz, 2013). The subprime lending crisis has taken a toll on the nation’s economy since 2007. Individuals who lacked sufficient credit ratings or down payments resorted to subprime mortgages to finance their homes Defaults on subprime and other mortgages precipitated the foreclosure crisis, which contributed to the recent recession and national financial crisis (Odetunde, 2015). Subprime mortgages were appropriate for borrowers with substandard credit and Alternate-A paper loans were
Americans who need a short term loan to repair a car, fly quickly to a stick relative beside or catch up on child care payments even find themselves going to payday lenders ether online or trough one of the thousands of payday lending store fronts. (Wherry) using online is a way to pay or catch up with your due date of the payment that you owe. Having someone that can help you with a payment is a payday lender that can help you with a car payment also paying your rent or buying food or also buying a new sofa. Nationally borrowers spend roughly 8.7 billion per year on payday loans fees and what might start as a 500 lifetime can become a heavily burden. (Wherry) having a borrower that lend you a loan can be easy but it’s time to payback that is when it became complicated. Also having a fee is very complicated because they pressure you to pay back when you miss your due date. Annual interest rates for payday loans typically run between 391 and 351 percent a cording to the center for responsible lending and most people who use them end up paying more in fees over the course of the year than they originally received credit. (Wherry) annual rates are very high in percentage because of lending tem money and not paying back on the due date. Having these huge percentages are too much but when you borrow more than you need the more you ending up paying than the last
Seminar- meeting 10. Usury- lending money Standard six questions
As a topic for this research paper, I decided to analyze the ethics behind the recent mortgage crisis in the United States. Banks were approving people for loans very easily, to people they knew would not be able to pay them back. Thus, many people were buying homes, missing payments, getting foreclosed on, and ruining what credit they had. Throughout this paper I intend to show how the practices that the banks were using were unethical. I will show who stakeholders were, and analyze them through Utilitarian and Kantian standpoints.