Payday loans, car title loans, line of credit loans and Internet loans:  What do they have in common? The cycle of debt. What is the cycle of debt?  Well, here is a picture of it from the training manual at Ace Cash Express, a large national payday, internet and car title lender: This picture comes from […]

Victims of financial exploitation now have a better shot at getting into court and getting their property back.  Financial exploitation of vulnerable adults is a serious and growing problem in Virginia.  Too often, exploited individuals don’t have any money to pay an attorney to take their case. Thanks to a bill sponsored by Del. David […]

Virginia’s early lease termination law went into effect July 1, 2013 and aims to help renters who are victims of domestic or sexual violence.  The law provides certain victims of family abuse, sexual abuse and sexual assault the right to terminate their residential leases with approximately 30 days’ advance written notice to their landlords. To […]

  Virginia has many rent-to-own stores where you can “buy without credit” things like computers, appliances, furniture and electronics.   The idea is that if you make all the rental payments, you will own it.  To read more about rent-to-own, check out our fact sheet. On the surface, this sounds great, right? But what happens if […]

  The Virginia Bureau of Financial Institutions just published data about car title loans made in Virginia in 2013 and it isn’t pretty.   Does it seem like there are a lot more car title loan stores than there were a year ago? That’s because we had a 23% increase in car title loan stores:  […]

  Governor McAuliffe vowed to move forward with Medicaid Expansion in Virginia at a press conference on June 20. Despite attempts by the legislature to derail his efforts, the Governor made clear that his promise to expand Medicaid to 400,000 uninsured Virginians would not go unmet. Why is Medicaid expansion such an important issue to […]