Professor Anita F. Hill wrote that a large percentage of first-time home buyers were women, and that loan officers took advantage of the lack of financial knowledge of many female loan applicants.
In 1996, the company agreed to pay $3 million into an "educational fund" to settle a Justice Department lawsuit accusing it of gouging and predatory lending practices against older, female, and minority borrowers.
The payday lending industry has been the source of ongoing controversy due to its lobbying tactics and industry practices that New York Times chief financial correspondent Floyd Norris bluntly calls predatory lending.
Inner City Press' executive director is Matthew Lee, who is the author of the non-fiction book Predatory Lending: Toxic Credit in the Global Inner City and the novel Predatory Bender and an accredited journalist at the United Nations.