On January 12, the Florida Attorney General’s Office announced it had “coordinated settlements with the operators of an online lending scheme.” According to the Florida AG’s press release , the companies involved in the alleged scheme include Western Sky Financial, LLC, CashCall, Inc., WS Funding, LLC, Delbert Services Corporation and John Paul Reddam, the President, CEO and owner of CashCall.

The settlements, in coordination with a pending Florida class action settlement against CashCall and Reddam, resolve allegations that CashCall “offered, serviced and collected on Western Sky loans to Florida borrowers with illegal interest rates of more than 18 percent.” Pursuant to the settlements, approximately 14,000 borrowers are expected to be eligible for restitution in the form of a cash payment from a combined fund of over $11 million. The lenders are also prohibited from enforcing or attempting to collect on over $15 million in outstanding loan balances. In addition, the lenders must pay costs and fines totaling $2.5 million to the State of Florida. Further, the CashCall’s lending license in the State of Florida is revoked and John Paul Reddam is banned for life from conducting future lending activities in Florida.

This settlement follows other recent settlements and enforcement actions against CashCall across the country, including actions by other state attorneys’ general including action in Minnesota , Arkansas , Nebraska , and West Virginia . The CFPB also brought action against CashCall last year, alleging that the lender was running a “rent-a-tribe” scheme to originate loans through a Native American tribal entity in an attempt to avoid state usury laws. The US District Court for the Central District of California held that the loans violated state usury laws and the Consumer Financial Protection Act.

A copy of CashCall’s settlement with the Florida AG and the Florida Office of Financial Regulation is available here .