'Consumers Rights' League Seeks to Derail Consumer Protections

WASHINGTON (Map) - WASHINGTON, Feb. 22 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- A predatory lending industry front group, the "Consumers Rights" League, emerged today to derail reform of reckless practices that have ensnared Americans in harmful payday loans, fostered hundreds of thousands of family foreclosures, roiled international markets, and put our country on the brink of recession.

The primary targets of this fake grassroots effort are the Center for Responsible Lending and its affiliate, Self-Help Credit Union. For the past 25 years, Self-Help has provided over $5 billion of financing to 55,000 low-wealth families, small businesses and nonprofit organizations in North Carolina and across the country, with an annual loan loss rate of less than one percent.

These attacks are nothing new. The "Consumers Rights" League joins the ranks of the Ku Klux Klan and drug dealers who opposed Self-Help's community development lending in poor and minority neighborhoods.

We want to set the record straight about the misinformation and distortions these predatory companies and their public relations attack firms are spreading. Please visit http://www.responsiblelending.org and see "Debunking Industry Propaganda" for the truth.

About the Center for Responsible Lending

The Center for Responsible Lending (http://www.responsiblelending.org/) is a nonprofit, nonpartisan research and policy organization dedicated to protecting homeownership and family wealth by working to eliminate abusive financial practices. CRL is affiliated with Self-Help (http://www.self-help.org/), one of the nation's largest community development financial institutions.