WASHINGTON–A consumer group is accusing the trade association for the payday loan industry of fabricating some of the “personal” stories it has included in a press release it published that claimed the CFPB was ignoring “positive” stories from payday loan customers.
Allied Progress, which describes itself as a nationwide nonprofit grassroots organization that uses “hard-hitting research and creative campaigns to hold powerful special interests accountable and empower hardworking Americans,” claims that a press release issued by the Community Financial Services Association (CFSA) that chastised the CFPB with the headline, “CFPB Buried, Ignored Positive Payday Loan Customer ‘Tell Your Story’ Testimonials It Requested,” failed “to mention…that many of these supposedly ‘personal’ submissions included some of the exact same sentences and paragraphs.”
Allied Progress said it is calling on the CFPB to more closely scrutinize the pro-industry “personal” stories it receives, as well as public comments submitted in opposition to its proposed rule on payday, vehicle title, and other high-cost installment loans.
“The request follows an analysis by the organization that identified purportedly unique stories and comments submitted directly to the CFPB in opposition to the proposed rule and in support of the payday lending industry, which included an alarming number of identical passages,” Allied Progress said.
“Payday lenders cannot be trusted to deal honestly with the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. We have found sentences and entire paragraphs that have been reused verbatim in hundreds of supposedly personal testimonials opposing the CFPB’s proposed payday lending rule,” said Allied Progress Executive Director Karl Frisch in a statement. “Someone needs to explain how so many individuals could have the exact same experience and come up with the exact same words in the exact same order to describe that experience with just a few unique passages sprinkled in an apparent attempt to throw off suspicious readers.”
Allied Progress made its request for greater scrutiny as part of its own public comment letter to the CFPB concerning the proposed payday lending rule. The organization said it has also identified specific examples of unethical behavior exhibited by the payday lending industry and its allies in their attempts to influence regulatory policy.
Allied Progress called the allegedly fake grassroots support for payday lenders “astroturf.”
Allied Progress alleged that the industry-supportive group Protect America’s Consumers has just one person affiliated with it, CEO Steve Gates, whom Allied Progress said in a press release “once worked for an organization that was caught faking grassroots activity, even forging letters to members of Congress.”
Moreover, alleged Allied Progress, the pro-payday group Arizona Financial Choice Association “organized a purported letter-writing campaign of borrowers supporting pro-industry legislation. In this case, a State Attorney General investigation was requested when it was revealed some of the borrowers who supposedly sent letters of support to state legislators did not recall signing the letters at all.”