By Morgan James
There are many reasons that you should never take out a payday loan (sometimes called a cash advance), including the high interest rates that make it financially irresponsible. Now, however, there are even more reasons to avoid getting a payday loan in Canada because of the high number of lawsuits against these loan companies.
Payday loan companies are notorious for disguising the amount of interest they charge consumers; they hide it in various fees. These fees often add up to more than the interest itself. In Canada, it is illegal to lend money with more than 60% interest. Sixty percent seems like an exorbitantly high interest rate in and of itself, but when you look at the fact that companies manage to charge more than this interest rate, the figures become positively alarming.
There have been numerous lawsuits filed against payday loan companies. In Canada, Bill McNally of McNally, Cuming, and Raymaker filed a suit in Calgary claiming that payday loan companies charged clients illegally high interest rates. The payday loan company Instaloan chose to settle with McNally: people who think they are eligible claimants may contact McNally to discuss getting their money back. The government established that these payday loan companies, while only allegedly charging 59% interest were actually charging 650% interest (not compounded) when you included all of the fees. Instaloan has set aside more than one million dollars to repay borrowers from the past eight years in Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, and Ontario.
Windsor, Ontario lawyer Harvey Strosberg of Struts, Strosberg LLP filed a lawsuit against MoneyMart, a major name in Canadian cash advances. Toronto lawyers Koskie Minsky and Paliare Roland have also joined in this motion. Although the lawsuit began in 2004, there is continuing litigation. Justice Hoy, the judge overseeing this case, has ordered that the certification hearing be in October 2006. This lawsuit accuses Money Mart of violating the 60% legal interest cap.
Sutts Strosberg et al have also filed suit against Stop’n’Cash, another large Canadian payday loan company. This suit has been granted class action status as of November, 2005, and will proceed to the courts in the following years.
Instaloan, Money Mart, and Stop’n’Cash are not the only pay loan companies that are charged with illegally high interest rates in Canada. Cash Money Cheque Cashing, Unicash, Cash Cow, Premiere Financial Services Ltd., and Quik Payday Loans have all had suits filed against them in the past five years. Though each company purports to have a legal (and competitive) interest rate, all payday loan companies charge exorbitant interest rates that are arguably illegally high.
Payday loan companies were completely unheard of fifteen years ago. They have since sprouted like parasites in low- to medium-income neighbourhoods all across Canada. Though many payday loan companies file motions that they cannot be tried in Canadian courts because their parent company is American, McNally’s victory against Instaloan proves that Canada does have the ability to enforce its usury laws.
With this seemingly endless mire of litigation, what is the message for the average consumer? The message is two-fold: firstly, don’t borrow money from payday loan companies. Secondly, if you have borrowed from payday loan companies in the past, you might be entitled to a portion of a settlement as these lawsuits progress. Contact your local credit counselling agency or law firm for more information
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