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Right now in Hawaii, it is legal to charge families 459 percent APR on payday loans. That is 12 times more than the worst credit card I’ve ever had, and almost 100 times higher than most mortgage rates.

Eighteen states and Washington, D.C., have either capped their interest rates at 36 percent or made Payday Loans illegal altogether. Back in 2006, the federal government made it illegal to charge military families more than 36 percent APR on payday loans.

There are bills in the Legislature right now that would cap Hawaii’s interest rates for payday loans at 36 percent. But the payday lenders are lobbying hard to defeat those bills. I live on Maui and work two jobs, so I don’t get to the Capitol during the week very often, but I have read some of the testimony from the payday lenders and they keep saying over and over that it is not their fault when families get into a cycle of debt from taking loans from their payday stores.

I take responsibility for the bad decisions I have made when I took Payday Loans in the past. And I want to make sure that everybody understands how aggressively many Payday lenders market their products to families like mine, families who struggle to make ends meet.

After my son was born, money was tight at my house. One day my brother came over and offered to take us to a payday lender for a loan. The payday lender told him that for every family he could bring in to get a loan, the payday lender would pay him $25.

We let my brother take us to the payday store and we got our first payday loan. We got a loan for $500 in 15 minutes, it felt too good to be true. The loan came due in two weeks and we owed the $500 plus over $80 interest. My husband and I pooled all our money together and took the $580 to the payday store to pay off our loan.  Paying this much at once was very hard, it meant we were going to go without until the next payday.

But when we walked into the payday store to pay our loan, the lady at the counter said “would you like us to re-loan this $500 to you?” We never asked for another loan, they offered it to us and we said yes. The lady at the counter was so happy for us and this loan was even faster than the first one. When we went to pay that loan back two weeks later, not only did they immediately offer to re-loan the money to us, they also offered to pay us $25 for any family we referred to them for a loan.

I would like to tell you that we turned them down, but we fell for it. We referred a family member to them and we got $25 cash for making that referral.  That $25 helped, but it didn’t come close to helping pay off the $80 we owed the payday lending every two weeks.

After a year of being stuck in payday loans, my husband and I went to a credit union near my work and applied for a loan.  Come to find out, we have pretty good credit!

We got a loan that allowed us to pay off our payday loans and buy a good used car. The credit union charges us 6.5 percent APR for this loan, instead of 459 percent on the payday loans.  I was so proud to get a good loan, but also ashamed that I had wasted so much of my household income on payments to the Payday store.

The credit union gave us all the rules and regulations for our loan in writing. All we ever got from the payday lender was a receipt for our payments. I am proud that I got my family out of the payday debt cycle. Now, instead of referring families to payday lenders for $25, I tell everyone my story about getting a good deal from a credit union. The credit union doesn’t have to pay me for that.

The story the payday lenders are telling at the Capitol is that they provide money to families in emergencies, that their product is never meant to be used repeatedly, and that families that gets stuck in the payday debt cycle are just irresponsible.  They are also telling legislators that they provide a necessary service to the community.

Then why do the payday lenders automatically offer to re-loan my money when I walk into their store? If the payday lenders think their product is only used in emergencies and is “necessary,” then why do they offer us cash to refer all our friends and family to come get loans? Do they really think that everyone I know is in a crisis? No, they know that once a family comes in to get a Payday loan at 459 percent interest, that they will make hundreds of dollars on that family before they are able to get out of the debt trap.

Each family should take responsibility for their financial decisions, and as a state we need to take responsibility for the laws that govern these dangerous loan products. Why are we allowing struggling families in Hawaii to be charged interest rates on these loans that would be illegal in 18 states?

Let’s curb these interest rates to 36 percent and give families a better chance to get themselves out of the payday debt trap.