Bad loans killed the taxi industry long before Uber and Lyft: report

The economic disadvantage of the city's taxi market may not be entirely wrong with the running companies – the industry was a short-circuit that expected to collapse, a report says.

An investigation by the New York Times Sunday blamed industry leaders who artificially inflated taxi medallions cost fivefold over the age of 12, creating a massively profitable loan market based on dubious lending practices similar to those in the center of housing crash.

In 2013, a taxi received $ 1.3 million in medallion, but last year the market had ripped and medallions sold for less than $ 250,000.

While much of the fall in value may be attributed to the flood of Uber and Lyft drivers, the report says Exchanging loans, of which hundreds were just interested, straddled drivers, often immigrants and unclear terms, with high monthly charges.

The report says that some borrowing costs were so steep, there were not enough hours in a week to drive e to make money, and finally all their monthly rates went to pay the loans.

When the market bottomed out in 201[ads1]4, the head of the Progressive Credit Union, Robert Familan, made almost $ 35 million from his medal loan not

Employees were encouraged to issue shackled loans with bonuses and tours, the report said.

The lenders refused any offense, and the former chairman of the city's Taxi and Limousine Commission said it was not the Commission's job to regulate lending, the report said.

But Meera Joshi told the newspaper "Many people just watched it happen."