Reported by: Tom McKee
Photographed by: 9News
Web produced by: Neil Relyea
The battle to try and repeal Ohio's tough new payday lending laws heated up Tuesday.
Backers of the check cashing store reforms charged petition circulators for the quick loan business illegally paid homeless men and women for their signatures.
"What is at stake here is nothing less than the integrity of the petition gathering process," said Tom Allio, chairman of the Ohio Coalition for Responsible Lending, during a Columbus news conference.
"Referendum leaders have a moral and legal obligation to ensure that those who work for them are properly trained, fully transparent and truthful in all their representations to signers," said Allio.
Kim Norris, spokesperson for Ohioans for Financial Reform responded immediately saying, "We don't know that that's true. We have nothing that's been produced to use in evidence so far."
Norris went on to say that each person circulating petitions is extensively trained on what is and isn't allowed to be done or said.
Payday lending businesses used to be able to charge 391% annual percentage rate for short term loans.
The Ohio Legislature changed that with passage of House Bill 545 that capped the APR at 28%.
Industry representatives objected saying the move would force many outlets to close and ultimately could result in the loss of 6,000 jobs.
The national payday lending lobby is trying to get enough signatures on petitions to place the issue before Ohio voters in November.
Two residents of Service City, a Hamilton homeless shelter on East Street, said they each received a dollar in June to sign one of the petitions.
Charles Schirmer said he was sitting at a picnic table outside the shelter when a couple of people with clipboards approached and said they were employees of a check cashing store.
"They told everybody if they signed the petition they could keep their jobs and they give everybody a dollar," Schirmer said. "There was 15 or so of us out there. I said, 'For a dollar just to sign my name, here you go.'"
Connie Smithers said she told the signature seekers, "You know you're in a homeless shelter."
"Everybody goes, 'Yeah. We'll do it,'' she said. "That's what happened."
Serve City director Kay Waldo said she felt the people at the shelter were victims of a crime.
"Absolutely," she said. "I think they take advantage of the people here. I really do."
Waldo claimed that some of the people at the shelter don't even know how to read.
"They're being asked to sign something without even being able to read it," she added. "It's a crime as far as I look at it."
"If something was said incorrectly, let the circulator's name be obtained and we will take swift action to investigate and remove that employee if necessary." Norris added.
Ohioans for Financial Freedom is now running a television commercial featuring a farmer touting the benefits of payday lending.
Norris says that many farms employ workers that use check cashing stores.
"We want to insure that Ohioans are informed that their financial choices could be taken away and in the process 6,000 good paying jobs with benefits will also be taken away," she continued.
