Complaint Review: American Web Loan - Ponca City Oklahoma

12:00 pm. PST. I received  a phone call at work from the company just a few minutes ago. I don't know how they got my office number because I gave them the generic phone number. I informed the person that I have filed complaints with the CFPB, and the FBI. I told the person that I responded to the e-mail sent to me when I filed the BBB complaint and I received no response. I also stated that I have read up about the company and the fact that they have been charged 1.6 million dollars in fines through the CT bank.

After I mentioned this fact, the person I was speaking to got audibly unraveled and kept telling me that he would turn the matter over to a third party and that the phone calls would not stop. To me, that sounds a little like harassment or a threat. In my opinion, I should not have to pay back on something that is illegal to begin with. This company has had complaints against them ever since their inception. According to this article (which is a little dated), payday lenders cannot use tribal affiliation to circumvent the law (as this company tried to do in CT. Of course they are trying to overturn the decision but I don't think it'll go). http://consumerist.com/2014/04/11/payday-lenders-cant-use-tribal-affiliation-to-garnish-wages-without-court-order/ 

I will file a complaint with the CFPB again if I need to. This company is not registered in my state and it is not following my state's laws. I don't know if it's even following the laws in the state it's supposed to be out of (despite the fact that when one does a check on the website on scamadviser.com, it shows the owner of the website is based out of AZ. Why is a company supposedly located in OK based out of AZ? And why is the information hidden? Scam Adviser says many illegal companies hide their information. Also, the site is hosted on Godaddy.com. Anyone can purchase a domain name through Godaddy). Therefore, I should not be beholden to paying anything to this company. Their methods of operations are sketchy and they apparently have a lot to hide. They are not even registered with verisign (although others I've dealt with are. And others actually have my state's license where I can view it and they clearly state how much I have paid on the loan and where the amount has gone. This site doesn't have that.) and don't believe the Online lenders Alliance they say they're a part of (I have read that lobbying group is rife with illegal operators. A word of note is that MN changed their laws to specify online payday lenders after being pressured by this OLA lobbying group).

I am firmly convinced that this company is illegal and operating fraudulently. I should not be harassed to pay back to a company who is operating unethically and illegally. In truth, I should receive a refund of the $600 I have given this company. A legal, ethical, and honest company should not be experiencing high fines in states they are not registered in. $1.6 million dollars is not exactly a light fine especially when it concerns usury.

As of 5/1/2015, I have had $600 taken out of my account. The complaint I have filed with the BBB didn't go anywhere because I refused to speak with representatives of the company. However, I did some checking the other day and I believe the practice of this business follows under my state's "Deceptive Trade" law. Plus, when I did a search for a license in my state, I came up with nothing.

To make things more interesting, I did a "Street View" search on Google Maps because I had read on a fraud-prevention site that many scams use dubious addresses. When I looked at the street vies (and I know it's not always accurate), there was nothing that seemed to constitute a payday loan building. There should have been at least a street sign but there was none. To add to this, when I did a search in a business directory listing for Ponica City, OK (the city where the company is based out of), no results for the company came up.

And here is a final note of interest. I found a couple of recent article dealing with this company and its affiliates: bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-01-06/payday-lending-by-tribe-targeted-by-connecticut

creditcards.com/credit-card-news/native-american-payday-loans-investigated-1282.php

I found this as well. This is concerning Washington but it's worth a look to people: dfi.wa.gov/consumer/alerts/great-plains-lending-unlicensed-payday-loans