Credit reporting agency Teletrack has been fined nearly $2 million by the FTC for illegally selling credit reports. Photo Credit: TrinityCreditServices/Flickr/CC-BY

Credit reporting agency Teletrack, which specializes in subprime credit reports, has been fined by the FTC for selling credit reports illegally. The agency was found to have sold credit reports to payday loan lenders and has to pay $1.8 million in fines to the Federal Trade Commission.

Company cited for selling credit reports for marketing purposes

The Federal Trade Commission has slapped credit rating agency Teletrack with $1.8 million in fines for illegally selling credit reports to payday loan companies for marketing purposes, according to WalletPop. Teletrack has agreed to pay the fines, but insists that it acted entirely within the law. The FTC says the company violated the Fair Credit Reporting Act, which prohibits the selling of financial information such as credit histories or borrowing habits of customers or similar information for any reason other than a “permissible purpose,” according to Statesboro Business and Lifestyle Magazine. Marketing is not a permissible purpose.

Huge presence in subprime credit market

Teletrack is one of the largest subprime credit reporting agencies. It reports the credit history and activities of hundreds of thousands of people who use subprime credit products. Also known as alternative financial services, Teletrack compiles data on people who borrow payday loans, purchase furniture through rent-to-own companies, use car title loans or get an auto loan through non-prime lenders. The FCRA doesn’t prevents companies like Teletrack from providing information when asked for a credit check and paid by a second party, but selling information to third parties for non-approved purposes is grounds for an FTC lawsuit, according to Forbes.

New rules for credit scores

Until the past few years, it was fairly difficult for consumers to obtain much information about their credit history or learn about how that information is being shared with their creditors or third parties. Part of the financial reform laws of the past few years include new rules and regulations concerning credit reporting and credit scores, according to NASDAQ. The Dodd-Frank Act created the new rules last year, and the Federal Trade Commission and the Federal Reserve are implementing them this year. Now, any creditor that uses a credit score as a factor in creating the terms of a loan must tell consumers what their credit scores are.

Sources

WalletPop

Statesboro Business and Lifestyle Magazine

Forbes

Nasdaq

What are the minimum requirements?

If you have a valid social security number and a steady job, you may qualify for easy cash loans. Online payday lenders typically require that you:

• Have a valid social security number
• Be at least 18 years old
• Have a permanent street address
• Be currently employed
• Be employed at your current job for three to six months, depending on the lender
• Have a minimum income of about $1,000 a month, depending on the lender
• Have a valid bank account with direct payroll deposit

What about credit checks?

One of the main goals of payday lenders is to provide short-term credit to people who might not otherwise be able to meet lending standards because of credit problems. Credit reports are rarely required for easy cash loans, although many payday lenders do obtain consumer reports from Teletrack.

What is Teletrack?

Teletrack is a consumer reporting agency operating under the Fair Credit Reporting Act, the same federal law that governs the three major credit-reporting agencies. The consumer information provided by Teletrack is obtained from payday lenders, rent-to-own businesses, furniture stores that provide financing, cable and telecom companies, non-prime lenders and credit unions.

Will a Teletrack report show up on my credit history?

Unlike reports from Equifax or the other major credit-reporting agencies, a consumer report from Teletrack will not show up on your credit report and will not affect your credit score. Payday lenders use Teletrack to verify the information provided by borrowers and to avoid fraudulent applications, but they don’t use them to access credit histories or to determine credit scores.

Should I apply?

Yes! What is there to lose? Remember that payday lenders are in the business of making easy cash loans to people with credit challenges just like yours. Some lenders even offer installment loans for bad credit. When you apply at Personal Money Market, you’ll instantly be matched with the best payday lender for your needs, and you’ll find out right away whether your application is approved. If you meet the lender’s minimum requirements and your application is honest, chances are good you’ll soon have the extra cash you need.

Apply for Easy Cash Loans | Start HERE!

Guaranteed Loans and Santa Claus: They're not real!

There are no such things as guaranteed loans. (You kind of knew that when you asked.) But if you’re hoping to get cash today, it’s guaranteed that Personal Money Market can almost always find a lender to grant your wish on the very best terms available.

There are no guaranteed loans, but payday loans are easy to get

Although there are no guaranteed loans, payday lenders generally don’t run credit checks. You can usually get a payday loan even if you have bad credit or no credit at all. You can usually get a payday loan despite having financial problems. You can get a payday loan if you’ve filed for bankruptcy, had your wages garnished, lost your home or car in a foreclosure or repossession, or are getting a divorce.

Payday loans are probably the most easily accessible form of credit available today. At Personal Money Market, your application is very likely to be approved even though there are no guaranteed loans.

You must be a sane adult with a regular income

To get a payday loan, you usually must have a job with a regular income and you must have been employed for the minimum time prescribed by the lender. You must have legal capacity to enter into a contract, so you cannot, for example, be a minor. Nor can you be insane. (Insanity can be a problem for people who have reached the age of majority but still believe in Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, and Guaranteed Loans.)

You must be a sociable person with a bank account

If you want an online payday loan, you have to have a bank account because online payday lenders deliver loan funds by electronic transfer. You usually have to know at least two people to get a payday loan, because lenders usually require personal references, although they generally don’t contact the references before making the loan. (References can be a problem for hermits, recluses, and other shut-ins, even when they have regular incomes and bank accounts.)

You mustn’t have too much of a good thing

Depending on whether your state has a “cooling off” law, you may not be able to get a payday loan if you’ve recently had too many in a row. Many state legislatures have determined that if there were were such things as guaranteed loans, too many people would become too deeply mired in payday loan debt all too quickly.

Some payday lenders obtain Teletrack reports

It bears repeating that payday lenders generally don’t run formal credit checks. Some, however, use Teletrack reports to make credit-risk assessments. Teletrack is not a traditional credit bureau, and unlike a credit check, a Teletrack check won’t show up on your credit report. Teletrack provides analyses of consumer credit histories based on information obtained from payday loan companies, furniture companies, vehicle financing firms, high-risk consumer finance companies, credit card companies, banks and credit unions, as well as public records.

Teletrack doesn’t make credit-worthiness decisions, but it provides information to payday lenders who may then use it to approve or deny loan applications. Teletrack is considered a consumer credit reporting firm and is governed by the Fair Credit Reporting Act.

You won’t get a loan if you don’t apply, guaranteed

So you see, there are no guaranteed loans, although you’re very likely to get a personal loan when you apply at Personal Money Market. If you need to borrow money now and know that you can pay it back on your next payday without having to borrow again, then apply today. Chances are your wish will be granted right away.

Apply for the Best Payday Loans HERE!

This Federal Reserve/Vanderbilt/Penn study tries to connect payday loans to credit ruin, but what they leave out suggests a rosier alternative. (Photo: flickr.com)

Credit cards have proven to be both a useful tool in establishing a credit history and a bane to those consumers who hope to maintain a good credit history. The temptation to “swipe and go” has been actively cultivated by the American media. With the magic plastic in hand, consumption is quick and easy. Those who pay off their credit cards each month may escape the revolving interest trap, but the vast majority of credit card users must not pay their balances in full. If they did, why would credit card companies offer reward programs? If consumers weren’t tied into earning points and paying interest fees, the programs wouldn’t be profitable for the companies.

What about Payday Loans?

According to multiple sources, over 10 million U.S. households use payday loans each year. These short-term loans are paid off over a set period of time, typically two weeks’ time. They fulfill a need and are not a swipeable ticket to impulse purchases. Certainly payday loans CAN be used for impulse buys, but lenders make it clear that this is not advisable. Furthermore, the amount available is finite, typically smaller than the credit limit available on a credit card.

Yet Sources Continually Try to Connect Payday Loans to Financial Ruin

Take the January 2009 interdisciplinary study “Payday Loans and Credit Cards: New Liquidity and Credit Scoring Puzzles?” Written by Sumit Agarwal (Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago), Paige Marta Skiba (Vanderbilt University Law School) and Jeremy Tobacman (University of Pennsylvania), this study attempts a statistical correlation between credit card default and payday loan use. In particular, the trio attempts to make the case that consumers consistently make bad decisions by choosing to take out payday loans when they have credit card liquidity.

There must be a reason that consumers make such a choice, however. Agarwal, Skiba and Tobacman do not define such reasons, so I will attempt to fill the crucial gap.

Methodology and Results

Agarwal, Skiba and Tobacman analyze a sample of 102,779 people who took out payday loans from a single lender (this is significant, as I’ll show in a moment) and 143,228 with credit card accounts in states where the same payday loan company operates. They discovered that while credit card issuers used FICO scores as the primary means of determining a consumer’s credit worthiness, the payday lender used Teletrack scores instead, which tend to track borrowing history more on the subprime scale.

According to the study authors, Teletrack scores were eight times more effective at predicting payday loan default than FICO scores. Thus, it can easily be assumed that the more effective credit evaluation device creates more successful payday loan transactions that it would defaults and additional fees. The mainstream media is too often ready to accuse the payday lending industry of wielding such fees like a fire hose on unwitting consumers, but the truth of the matter is much less dramatic.

Payday Loan Customers Have Access to Prime Credit

Even though the authors’ study indicate that on average, consumers who use payday loans have a lower average income compared with those who just use credit cards, the same study indicates that their average FICO score is still in the 620 or slightly lower range. Thus, they can still access prime credit cards.

Why is it then that, as the authors indicate,

Two-thirds of people in the matched samples have at least $1,000 of credit card liquidity on the day they take their first payday loans, much more than the typical $300 payday loan.

It’s an interesting question. A 2001 survey by Elliehausen and Lawrence regarding credit card availability and usage found that 56.5 percent of respondents who used payday loans had bank-issued credit cards with liquidity available, but 61 percent “hadn’t used them in the past year in order to avoid exceeding the cards’ credit limits.”

People Don’t Like to Admit When They Fall to Temptation

The authors show us that there is a steady decline in credit card liquidity leading up to the time when consumers take out payday loans, but the liquidity doesn’t disappear entirely. The authors comment that

This is interesting because it speaks to the question of why people borrow on payday loans. If liquidity were flat until a large drop one month before the payday loan application, we would suspect that a single large bad shock had unexpectedly arrived. Since we find average liquidity falling steadily, impatience, general financial mismanagement or persistent shocks seem more likely explanations.

Perhaps what Agarwal, Skiba and Tobacman define as “impatience” or “financial mismanagement” could include the psychological temptation having a credit card that needn’t be paid off in full each month (advisable, but generally not required). It would be worth studying that factor in greater detail, as I know from first-hand experience that having access to credit, using it and allowing it to revolve month-to-month is an easy trap. In my opinion, such situations are not out of the ordinary. Closer study is warranted.

The Author’s View of Payday Loans is Limited

Obviously, if you only survey financial results based on the clientele of a single payday lending operation, your results will be far from definitive. When the authors claim that credit card holders who take out payday loans are 92 percent more likely to experience credit card delinquency, such a dramatic number indicates to me that the statistical sample is much too small to be meaningful. If consumers evaluated by Teletrack are generally less prone to payday loan defaults, why would credit card defaults be all that different?

It is significant to note here that applying for payday loans does not generally depend upon or impact one’s FICO score. That is one of the major selling points of the product, as consumers with less than perfect credit can take out a payday loan for a set amount when necessary. There is no system of revolving credit at work with payday loans; the balance is paid in full at a set date two weeks in the future. Furthermore, since payday loans obtained after Teletrack reference are generally not recorded in a consumer’s credit history, other lenders cannot use a consumer’s payday loan history against them when they apply for large-scale loans for homes, vehicles, education, etc. If banks could use payday loan information against consumers, they most certainly would. Their track history of penalizing and confusing consumers with credit card terms prompted President Obama to step in with fair credit practice legislation, which in my mind only serves to support my argument that banks will charge whatever they can.

Why Don’t Credit Card Companies Use Teletrack?

You’d think credit card companies would find any subprime information about a consumer to be valuable in their attempts to justify higher rates and limiting practices. The study authors indicate that the reason credit card issuers don’t normally use Teletrack is that the credit bureaus charge them for each credit query. Perhaps the leverage they can glean on a consumer is not valuable enough to counteract the fees?

Temptation Yields to Payday Loans

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Considering how much damage a consumer can do to their credit history by allowing revolving interest credit cards to spiral out of control, the set maturity period of payday loans could readily be considered a better option. From a psychological standpoint, not having a tempting credit card in hand when you surf E-commerce sites or drift through the local shopping mall could be advantageous to the consumer. While Agarwal, Skiba and Tobacman have the beginnings of a useful study here, a larger sample of both credit card issuers and payday loan businesses is needed to make a more meaningful assessment of the payday loan’s supposed correlation with credit destruction. Perhaps then consumers can more easily see that the practices of banks who issue credit cards may be the most harmful advice out there. See the video below if you aren’t convinced of that yet…

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