Last spring, Federal Cash Advance of Oklahoma, LLC raked in nearly $1 million in a single transaction. That money came from the federal Paycheck Protection Program (PPP), which grants forgivable loans to small businesses to alleviate the financial turmoil wrought by the COVID-19 pandemic. The company, which does business as CashMax, runs dozens of green and yellow storefronts across Texas. It promises a “quick,” “friendly,” and “hassle free” way to get cash, through payday and auto title loans, along with cash advances.
But the loans sometimes come with a catch. An anonymous borrower submitted a complaint about CashMax to the federal Consumer Financial Protection Bureau in October. They said a woman who worked for CashMax and another online payday loan company “has been harassing me at my work on my cell.” According to the complaint, the CashMax representative said the borrower owed the two companies $1,500; she threatened to sue the complainant. The representative even allegedly asked to speak to the borrower’s employer to track them down and serve them at work. Under federal law, debt collectors can generally only call up someone’s boss to ask about their contact information, not to snitch about an employee’s debt.
A CashMax representative said they “deny everything” in the complaint, but declined to elaborate. “In the spirit of compromise, we resolved all the issues of the complainant with a confidentiality agreement,” he said.
