{
  "id": "2005-septemberoctober-borrowers-buried-under-debt-fees",
  "slug": "2005-septemberoctober-borrowers-buried-under-debt-fees",
  "url": "https://dwillis.github.io/uplink/article/2005-septemberoctober-borrowers-buried-under-debt-fees.html",
  "year": 2005,
  "month": "September/October",
  "monthNum": 9,
  "headline": "Borrowers buried under debt, fees",
  "kicker": "SPOTLIGHT: BUSINESS",
  "author_name": "Carrie Teegardin",
  "author_title": "Reporter",
  "affiliation": "The Atlanta Journal-Constitution",
  "summary": "Georgia's transformation into a creditor-friendly state has left many borrowers struggling under high debts and fees, with a focus on fast foreclosure processes and small loan companies.",
  "keywords": [
    "debt",
    "foreclosure",
    "loans"
  ],
  "topics": [
    "Data & Databases",
    "Business & Economy",
    "Investigative Methods"
  ],
  "technologies": [
    "Access",
    "MapInfo",
    "Excel"
  ],
  "full_text": "James Oglethorpe founded the colony of Georgia as a haven for people who had been imprisoned for their debts. But today, Georgia has become perhaps the least forgiving state in the nation for people who owe money. A team of reporters at the Journal-Constitution - Ann Hardie, Alan Judd and myself went to work last year to understand how Georgia was transformed from a debtor's colony to a creditor's paradise. We mined lots of data to understand the lending landscape in Georgia. The series, which kicked off with four parts in January and is continuing, was filled with findings unearthed by our analysis of various databases. Of the 100 counties nationally with the highest rate of personal bankruptcy filings, 45 are in Georgia. We obtained county-level bankruptcy data compiled by the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts and combined it with county-level population data from the Census Bureau to produce a personal bankruptcy rate for every U.S. county. We used Microsoft Access to perform the analysis. Our database editor, David Milliron, produced a national county-by-county map, using MapInfo Professional, that ran on the first day of the series. We knew the state of Georgia had a relatively high bankruptcy rate, but by presenting the data at the county level we could see compelling information. Legislators who were in session at the state Capitol when the series was published passed around copies of the map. We spent several days in bankruptcy court, interviewing people who had filed, along with bankruptcy attorneys, judges and trustees. We found that Georgia's lightning-fast foreclosure process had prompted many people to seek bankruptcy protection - they were simply trying to save their homes. We were able to establish that no state allows a faster foreclosure process than Georgia, where a house could be sold on the courthouse steps in as few as 37 days after a bank initiated the process. The number of foreclosures initiated against properties in metro Atlanta's 13 core counties in 2004 was more than double the number in 2000. We went to a private contractor to acquire five years of data for every foreclosure initiated in metro Atlanta. The vendor, Equisystems LLC, provided the data to us in a Microsoft Excel file at no cost. Georgia's 'small loan companies' old-time storefront lenders who offer loans to people with poor credit - are alive and well. Their interest rates are high and they increase the cost of the average loan by adding on with more than three questionable insurance policies. Our look at Georgia's 1,000 small loan companies was the most laborious analysis of the series. The companies are required to file detailed annual reports to the state Insurance Commissioner. But the most recent reports were on paper. We hired a data entry contractor to key in the crucial data from the most recent reports. We then crunched the numbers for several years' worth of data, using Access. We did a variety of queries to determine the characteristics of the average loan - how much did the average customer borrow? How many credit insurance policies did they buy? What was the actual cost of borrowing? The findings were eye-opening: most of the 1 million loans taken out by poor Georgians every year came at an effective annual cost of more than 100 percent and the commissioner's office had permitted excessive rates for the credit insurance policies. We estimated that in 2003 small loan customers had overpaid by $65 million for credit insurance. We arrived at that figure by calculating loss ratios on the insurance products.",
  "provenance": {
    "extracted_by": "pre-v2",
    "extracted_at": "",
    "verified": true
  },
  "similar": [
    {
      "slug": "2005-septemberoctober-home-mortgage-resources",
      "score": 0.194
    },
    {
      "slug": "2006-january-february-tracking-home-foreclosures",
      "score": 0.152
    },
    {
      "slug": "2006-january-february-disaster-loans",
      "score": 0.12
    },
    {
      "slug": "2003-february-database-library-news",
      "score": 0.111
    },
    {
      "slug": "2001-septemberoctober-naming-debtors",
      "score": 0.108
    }
  ],
  "html_url": "https://dwillis.github.io/uplink/article/2005-septemberoctober-borrowers-buried-under-debt-fees.html",
  "json_url": "https://dwillis.github.io/uplink/article/2005-septemberoctober-borrowers-buried-under-debt-fees.json"
}