Pay day check cashing rip offs

Payday lenders have stepped up their federal lobbying as Congress works on sweeping legislation to regulate banks and protect consumers from the risky financial practices blamed for the economic crisis.

The Community Financial Services Association, which represents more than half of the storefront payday lenders, spent $2.6 million in lobbying last year — a 75% jump from 2008 — as it has battled to exempt itself from regulation by a proposed consumer protection agency President Obama wants to create.

The Online Lenders Alliance, the association for Internet-based payday lenders, has hosted dozens of fundraisers for lawmakers at a Capitol Hill townhouse.

A bill that recently passed the Senate banking committee could shield some of the industry from the new agency's enforcement powers, but a House-passed version would make the lenders subject to full enforcement by the proposed Consumer Financial Protection Agency.

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2010-04-19-payday-lenders-lobby-regulation_N.htm

Pay day advance companies are the 21st century version of the pawnshop and the loan shark. They feed off poverty and the desperation of the poor.

If this racket is exempted from proposed consumer financial protection legislation, don't ever believe anyone in the current Congress truly cares about the poor.