(WBBM NEWSRADIO) -- Lawmakers wanting to cap pawn shop interest rates at 36 percent are getting pushback from the pawn shops.
Millennial Jazmine Thompson needed cash to move to Chicago. “The interest rates on my pawn loans were approximately over 150 percent,” Thompson told reporters at a statehouse news conference. “For over a year, I paid $200 per month in interest to roll over the loans, and after a year, I had paid $2,400 in interest, made no progress towards paying off my loans, and the pawn shop still had my items” – a laptop and three cameras.
Arlington Heights pawnbroker Kelly Swisher said Thompson’s math doesn’t add up, and he recalls the story of the $73,000 hotel room. “If you looked at your bill, and it says, $73,000, you would take pause. It’s actually a $200 hotel room,” he said. “We’re not doing one-year pawns. We’re only doing a short period of time.”
Swisher, president of the Illinois Pawnbrokers Association, said this is about eliminating pawn shops - most of which, he said, are mom-and-pop businesses.
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