deanna murphy's blog

I am an employee of a Payday Lender in Ohio. I also went through training in order to be able to obtain signatures on the petiton to have the Payday Lending issue placed on the November ballot. I wanted to thank everyone who signed the petition. In just a few short weeks, 422,000 signatures were obtained from registered voters in Ohio.. It's so overwhelming to have so much support for our industry.

In a time where Americans are losing more & more personal freedoms, while we are fighting in other countries to give them more freedoms, it is great to see that Americans are willing to stand up and say ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!!

All Americans should have the freedom to make their own financial choices, without government intervention. Most of the stories about payday lenders are exaggerations and misinformation.

The fact is that most of our customers are middle class citizens who need a little extra money from time to time. I had a new customer come in over the weekend, his car broke down & he just needed the money to get it fixed, but his payday was another week away.

Our goal is not to trap customers in a cycle of debt. We actually try to discourage this. If we see that a customer is having trouble repaying us, we will work with them on payment arrangements, and at times will lower their limit in incrementally to help them break the cycle.

We are not the evil predators that we are portrayed as by the media and certain groups, like the Ohio Coalition of Responsible Lending.

Our fees are cheaper than bouncing a check, or making a late payment on a credit card and getting charged a high late fee and having the interest rate raised so high that the customer can never pay them off, especially if they are making minimum payments.

Again, thank you to everyone who signed the petition and remember to get out there and vote. Thank you so much for your support

Thank you,

Deanna Murphy