Is eLoanWarehouse Legit: Lawsuits Review
The lawsuit against eLoanWarehouse alleges that the company is involved in an illegal 'Rent-a-Tribe' lending scheme. The case, Janetzke v. Opichi Funds LLC et al., was filed on September 18, 2023.
The lawsuit alleges that the defendants, including Opichi Funds LLC, have engaged in a 'Rent-a-Tribe' scheme, where a non-tribal payday lender claims that its business is owned and operated by a Native American tribe. The companies behind this scheme typically maintain that they're shielded from usury laws due to tribal sovereign immunity and then charge consumers excessive interest rates on small loans.
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The 'Rent-a-Tribe' lending scheme is a practice where a non-tribal payday lender claims that its business is owned and operated by a Native American tribe. This is typically done to evade state usury laws and charge consumers excessive interest rates on small dollar loans.
However, in reality, the tribe often has little to no significant involvement in the operation of the lending business. The tribe acts as a fa?ade for an illegal lending scheme whereby the parties exploit the tribe’s sovereign immunity in exchange for a fee. The principal economic benefit of the business is received by mostly non-Native American consumers.
These so-called 'tribal lenders' typically perform all of their business functions far from tribal land, and are operated by and benefit non-tribal members to such an overwhelming degree that tribal involvement is effectively nil. Therefore, tribal immunity does not apply.
The lawsuit further alleges that the Lac Courte Oreilles Band of Lake Superior Chippewa Indians, a federally-recognized sovereign American Indian tribe located in northern Wisconsin, has little meaningful involvement in eLoanWarehouse. The tribe allegedly receives less than 10 percent of the payday loan company’s revenues, and the rest goes to non-tribal members, including defendants David Johnson, Kirk Michael Chewning and a web of interconnected companies, culminating with Cane Bay Partners VI, LLLP.
In addition to this, there is another lawsuit, Reedy-Randall v. Opichi Funds, LLC, filed on August 2, 2023, in the US District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan. This lawsuit is related to the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) and involves Opichi Funds, LLC, doing business as eLoanWarehouse.