South Dakota has joined a group of 13 states in suing OneMain Financial, Inc. for illegally misleading its customers and trapping tens of thousands of borrowers in expensive loans with hidden costs.
“This company packs its loans with often senseless insurance policies and other add-on products,” said Attorney General Marty Jackley. “South Dakota consumers are being forced to pay for services they never agreed to and didn’t need.”
OneMain Financial has branches in Rapid City, Sioux Falls, and Watertown. It is not yet known how many South Dakota customers have been impacted.
The lawsuit alleges the following about OneMain’s bait and switch scheme:
- OneMain does not advertise that it sells add-on products, so consumers who come through its doors will not expect the company to push these products.
- OneMain rushes consumers through the loan process without allowing the consumer to understand, or sometimes even notice, that add-on products have been added to their loans.
- OneMain operates an elaborate sales process that purports to disclose the products, but the company puts financial pressure on its employees to hide the add-ons.
- OneMain pre-populates its loans with every possible add-on product before rushing through a loan closing process in which its employees control the computer screen that shows the loan documents. This does not allow the consumer time to review each page of the loan application as the employee scrolls through the contract.
- OneMain buries the fine print that mentions the add-on products inside 50 pages of legalese, which OneMain prevents consumers from reading before accepting the loan contract.
- OneMain often closes loans on smart phones, where already small print shrinks to 1/3 its normal size.
- OneMain also misleads consumers when encouraging them to refinance their loans by tacking on add-on products and by hiding key terms. As a result, consumers only discover how much they are paying for the loans after the loans have been completed.
Along with South Dakota, states whose Attorneys General have joined in the lawsuit are from: Colorado, Maryland, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Washington and Wisconsin.
The lawsuit can be found here: https://agportal-s3bucket.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/Consumer%20Protection/OneMain%20filed%20complaint.pdf?VersionId=vFZlcOZvSwpn.WO85WYEqEreNBzmU7Ww
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