Online Lead Generation

What You Need to Know to Protect Yourself from Companies in the Business of Secretly Selling You to Predatory Payday and Other Short-term Loan Companies

This report explains the online lead generator industry. It is part of our joint project with the Center for Digital Democracy called "Data and Consumer Protection: Ensuring a Fair and Equitable Financial Marketplace."

US PIRG Education Fund & CDD

This report summarizes how the online lead generation (or “lead gen”) business works. Companies that look as if they are offering you a loan are actually (often deceptively) collecting information about you to sell your profile (a “lead”) to the highest-bidding loan company (and often to fraudulent firms, too). At the end of the report, we offer consumer tips on what you can do to protect yourself.

A Report of the USPIRG Education Fund/Center for Digital Democracy Project on Digital Data and Consumer Protection: Ensuring a Fair and Equitable Financial Marketplace (main project page).

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