Ca company regulators are stumbling inside their efforts to locate and ban a form that is unlicensed of credit: payday advances available on the web.
The state Department of Corporations has been trying to force these Internet-only businesses to adhere to the same rules that govern the state-licensed payday loan stores that offer short-term, unsecured loans of up to $300 for three years.
But some of these Web loan providers — without any real presence in their state and run as tribal entities outside of Ca — state they have been Indian-owned companies, connected to sovereign Indian countries and resistant from state legislation.
“These are businesses, and they’re operated in keeping with federal legislation,” said John Nyhan, a l . a . lawyer for just two out-of-state tribes that are indian loan operations are now being targeted by Ca regulators.