By completely ignoring the pleas of thousands of payday loan borrowers, putting 6000 Ohioans out of a job during a recession, and costing the Ohio economy millions of dollars, I hereby sentence the Gov. Strickland and the Ohio Legislature to Civil Disobedience Torture.
That’s right, since Ohio’s politicians decided to act in their own best interest and ignore the people who placed them in Columbus, they now must be made aware of the cost of their actions. This call goes out to all Ohioans, because the legislators have shown total disregard and utter contempt for all of you.
Your primary targets are Governor Strickland, House Speaker John Husted, Rep. Chris Widener, and Senate President Bill Harris. All of these men are guilty of not only ignoring incessant constituent pleas, but for lying to the faces of store owners by telling them they wouldn’t support a ban. Your secondary targets are all legislators who voted for HB 545.
Let’s be clear that I am not advocating violence of any kind, and that some of these tactics may risk arrest. But hey – if you don’t make their lives miserable, they won’t get the message.
Your tactics are as follows. Find your local legislator and see if they voted for the bill. If so, you’ll first want to find their home address and phone number.  March in a tight group back and forth across their driveway, making it difficult for them to enter and exit.
Do the same at their local office, and their office at the capitol.
Call them in the middle of the night asking if they will give you a loan at 28% interest if you give them a post-dated check.  Block your caller ID by hitting *67 first. If it were me, I’d find a way to stick a fish under their car. But hey, that’s me.
Call their local office every day asking for a loan. A few thousand calls should make it clear that since they took away your best option, they are responsible for finding you a better one.
Learn where your representative hangs out. If you encounter them in, say, the local supermarket, greet them in a very loud voice and say, “Hi, Representative X, since you banned payday loans, I can’t buy groceries for my family, can you loan me some money?! You won’t?!â€Â Start to cry. Break down. Wail loudly.  The one thing politicians don’t want is a scene involving them so they’ll probably run away. That’s good. Now you can tell the media that they turned their back on you – again – when you needed them at the market.
Visit their local office. Bring friends. Bring a really smelly lunch, like tuna or bacon or durian or Stinking Bishop cheese. Stay there a really long time, but be sure you are conducting legal business.  Let the stink filter through the whole place. (If it were me, I’d put a fish in the ventilation intake, but hey – that’s me). If you see your representative while you’re there, ask him for a loan in a really loud voice.  He’ll refuse. See supermarket example above for what to do next.
Send a pound of nuts to each politican’s office, so you can say, “You were NUTS to pass the payday loan billâ€, or “NUTS to you, Senator, for turning your back on the peopleâ€, or “We are going to drive you NUTS until you repeal HB 545â€.
But the real key is to make their re-election campaigns a living nightmare. Remember, that’s what they want the most – to retain power so they can screw you over again. The first thing you need to do is find a great candidate to run against the offending politician in your district. There are plenty of good, honest people out there. You may even be one of them.  Find that candidate and work for them! District elections are small enough that real effort can produce real results.  This is the most effective thing you can do.
Disrupt the offending politician’s events. At town hall meetings, show up in large groups. Shout down the politician whenever he tries to talk.  His audience needs to know what he did to the little guy. You do this one protester at a time, because each person will probably be removed after the shout-down.  But an endless supply of protesters will make it a short evening! Of course, once things quiet down, someone can ask him allllll about why he voted to ban payday loans and challenge him on it repeatedly.
Signs, protests, disruptions – these are the hallmarks of the civil disobedient and you must use them to maximum effect during election season. Get the message out: your candidate will listen while the incumbent has already proven he doesn’t.
On Election Day, stand just beyond the limit where electioneering is prohibited with signs protesting the offending politician. The more the merrier.
Most effective, however, will be your internet campaign. The internet is great. You can say so many wonderful things on the internet and, in most cases, do so with complete anonymity. For example, setting up a website with the title “John Husted is a ________â€
(Be creative!) and writing anything you want about him can be loads of fun. The more of these websites that spring up, the better. Google can be a terrible thing when someone does a search for, say, Rep. Widener and they find the page “Rep. Widener sleeps with _______â€.
Or you could just tell the truth – that these men and women have earned the scorn of every right-thinking Ohioan for saying, “We do not care about you. We only care about ourselvesâ€.
14 users commented in " Ohio Legislators Will Pay for Payday Loan Ban "
Follow-up comment rss or Leave a TrackbackPayday lenders offer a state regulated alternative to loan sharks. Clearly FinAnalyst, self-proclaimed consumer advocates and the elected officials in Ohio are all beholden to banks and utilities that charge Ohio consumers at least twice as much for bounce “protection” and utility restart fees. The legislature didn’t solve a problem, instead they forced consumers to pay more to big banks, utility companies, and “unregulated” lenders. It is sad when banking lackeys get onto the Internet and espouse their price fixing rhetoric. If you want price fixing FinAnalyst move to Cuba, China, or Venezuela. Chavez would love to have you.
You are an idiot……Yeah i am sure people will do this just shut up you must be a manager at one of those horrible stores….I am reporting this website!
Yeah the best way is to condone violence leave those Representatives alone if you would of gone to college maybe you could of had a job like that too…quit whining….Pansie!
Hey You Said:
You didn’t just lose your job. The citizens of Ohio must stand up for what’s right.
One could surmise that instead of “marching back and forth….”, it would be more beneficial to go out and replace the job that was lost. At last count,there were approximately 8,350 customer service positions open in Ohio’s banking and credit union institutions. Most customer service reps from the payday industry have the requisite skills to contend for these jobs. As for government intrusion on personal choice, focus would be better served on the intrusive federal, state, and city tax rates that collectively take 65% of your wages (do not forget sales, school, real estate, gasoline, and assorted other taxes, well below the radar). This is MUCH more onerous than the 28% legislative cap on short term loans. Pick your battles wisely….win the war.
I LOST MY JOB! And I am pissed off. Me and my children lost our livelihood and our health insurance. This law was overkill. It killed 6,000 payday lending employees and the customers who NEED this service. I hate every legislator who voted for this and I will vote against each and every one of them. I can’t wait until November!
Consumers should decide whether to have access to payday advance services said the Community Financial Services Association of America (CFSA) as it announced a referendum to overturn the recently passed law effectively banning payday advances in Ohio.
The referendum would repeal Substitute H.B. 545, which was signed by Governor Ted Strickland on June 2, 2008. The Reject HB 545 committee must collect 241,365 valid signatures before September 1st in order to qualify for this November’s ballot. Voters will be asked to oppose enactment of the Sub. H.B. 545 as adopted by the General Assembly
Don’t sign the petition to overturn HB 545. The Ohio legislature acted responsibly by curbing the predatory practices of an industry that takes advantage of others’ misfortunes. Payday lending provides no net tangible benefit to Ohio consumers and strips wealth from our communities. Payday loan companies should be able to be profitable at 28% APR and many have signed up for new licenses with the Ohio Department of Commerce to continue operations under another statute.
Scott J:
You have never taken out a payday loan, so how would you know if there is a tangible benefit to consumers or not?
Here’s the truth: the benefit is HUGE. Hundreds of millions of payday loan transactions have been made in this country alone over the past 20 years.
Use a little logic. If there were no tangible benefit seen for consumers, then consumers would not use them. If you understood anything about economics or how business works, you’d know this. If a product does not have utility, it doesn’t get used! DUH!
If you spent any time at all reading the quarterly reports of payday loan companies, then you would read their profit and loss statements. You would therefore see that a 28% APR rate cuts their revenues by 93%. That puts them out of business immediately. So, no, they cannot be profitable at that rate.
Please provide evidence that “wealth is stripped from communities” because of payday loans. You have none.
You are a typical ignorant, and uneducated opponent, who does not understand economics, business, or how real people get by without the need for short term credit.
Rod: regarding the 8,350 customer service positions supposedly available — some of us don’t want to work for organizations that treat people the way credit unions and banks do… five and six digit APRs! They should be ashamed – but not outlawed.
I think the presence of check-cashers and payday loan stores that give consumers a lower cost choice is a good thing.
I think treating people with dignity and respect is also a good thing, regardless of whether they have enough money for a credit union to do so.
I think the payday loans are horrible!!!! They want you to go to their sister company to pay off their loan. They also harrass you endlessly if you bounce one of their checks. There is no working with them. The interest rate and the cycle of endless debt is just what they want and how they make their money.
People need help and respect, not a loan shark.
I’m sure most of you saying all the bad things about payday loans are the ones that have borrowed from every place you could find, thinking that it’s free money, and never pay it back! Then want to sit back and say that they lured you in! Come on, you’re not really that stupid to think that it’s the company’s fault do you?!!! Or, do you!
It all boils down to being educated about the issues. If you don’t understand something, learn about it before passing judgement. If I wrote a check to the grocery store for $10.00 because I needed milk and bread to feed my children and that check bounced I would pay $30.00 to the bank and a possible fee to the grocery store. Not to mention that the grocery store may hang my personal check up for the community to see that I bounced it, causing me embarrassment and loss of dignity. If I use a payday advance company and get a $50.00 payday advance in Ohio, it would cost me $7.50 for two weeks and I would still have my dignity. (as well as a little more food for my children) The industry doesn’t force anyone to use the services offered and the only reason an APR is even mentioned, when it truly is just a flat fee, is because regulators forced them to post APRs even when it is not an “annual” loan. I spent $4.77 on one beverage at Starbucks this morning, if I did this every business day for a full year it would cost me $1240.20 – where are thier APRs posted. I could go on, but the people who need to listen, don’t anyway.
Good Luck!
Wow, you must be stupid. You are publicly encouraging violence. I agree with the poster who says it should be reported. Violence is no way to get things accomplished. And, thank goodness this law PASSED! Na Na Na Na…..Hey Hey Hey……….GOODBYE!!!!!!!!!!!!
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