Your car is your credit: Using research to curb predatory car title lending

• Published date: 01 July 2023
• Author: Jean Ann Fox
• Date: 01 July 2023
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/joca.12557

COMMENTARY

Your car is your credit: Using research to curb

predatory car title lending

Jean Ann Fox

Center for Economic Integrity, Tucson,

Arizona, USA

Correspondence

Jean Ann Fox, Center for Economic

Integrity, 509 E. Radburn Street, Tucson,

AZ 85704-5748, USA.

Email: jafox1833@gmail.com

Abstract

This article is an edited version of the 2023 Esther

Peterson Consumer Policy Forum lecture delivered at

the American Council on Consumer Interests annual

conference in May 2023.It uses the car title loan prod-

uct to illustrate the information necessary to improve

the credit market for vulnerable consumers. It provides

ideas for research that would inform work to reform

consumer loans secured by ownership of a vehicle.

KEYWORDS

consumer advocacy, title loans

1|INTRODUCTION

I appreciate being here for the 70th anniversary of ACCI. Not that I have been around quite

that long, but my work as a consumer advocate overlapped with some of the original leaders of

the modern consumer movement and your leadership in the academic sector. I am honored to

give the Esther Peterson lecture.

For much of my career, I have worked with advocates to combat predatory small dollar

lending, including payday and car title lending. At Consumer Federation of America (CFA), we

wrote or co-wrote four reports on car title lending. As a volunteer with the Center for Economic

Integrity (CEI) in Arizona, I focus on car title lending and evasion of Arizona's voter-supported

usury protections. You can follow our work at Title Lending (nomoreloansharksaz.org).

Advocacy runs on information. Research, data collection and reporting, case studies,

polling, and other means of illuminating the credit market provide essential information for

lawmakers, regulators and law enforcement, consumer advocates and educators, and bor-

rowers. Today, I will use the car title loan product to illustrate the information necessary to

improve the credit market for vulnerable consumers and to provide ideas for research you and

your students can conduct to inform work on reforming consumer loans secured by ownership

of a vehicle.

Received: 28 August 2023 Accepted: 28 August 2023

DOI: 10.1111/joca.12557

Copyright 2023 by The American Council on Consumer Interests.

J Consum Aff. 2023;57:989–999. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/joca 989