Internet lender owes restitution to Minnesota borrowers

ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) – A California-based internet lender has been barred from doing business in Minnesota unless it complies with state lending laws.

Attorney General Lori Swanson says the court-approved consent judgment orders CashCall, Inc. to provide more than $11.7 million in relief to about 6,000 borrowers in Minnesota.

Under the settlement, the company must pay $4.5 million in restitution to customers, cancel more than $5.2 million in outstanding loans and notify third party companies that bought outstanding loan balances of nearly $2 million to cancel the debt.

The state sued CashCall in 2013 alleging that it had a front company, Western Sky Financial, which falsely claimed to be affiliated with a Native American tribe. The companies then claimed Western Sky’s bogus tribal affiliation allowed it to charge interest rates of up to 342 percent.