Payday-loan opponents have long believed that the practice takes advantage of the fact that when people feel backed into a corner they’re likely to take desperate measures. Critics also lump payday lenders in the same category as pawnbrokers, rent-to-own centers, and rapid-tax-refund services, all of which, detractors maintain, take advantage of the poorest and neediest of citizens.
Many of the industry’s harshest critics have described payday lending as akin to “legal loan sharks” (interestingly, lawmakers amended the state’s criminal code in 1983 to exempt consumer installment loans from the definition of criminal usury, the legal term for loan sharking).
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