Ten years ago, Missouri legislators crafted some meaningful consumer protections for title loans, those high-interest financial products of last resort that, if not paid, can lead to borrowers' cars getting repossessed.

Trouble is, companies peddling title loans don't need to follow the law; Missouri regulators allow lenders to shop around for the rules they like best.

Often, that means title-loan shops seek state licensing as different types of lenders. For consumers, the difference between getting a title loan from a licensed title lender, rather than from a licensed small-loan lender, can amount to thousands of dollars.

Missouri's title loan law isn't particularly restrictive. It doesn't cap interest rates, as laws in some other states do. But it does require the loan eventually to be paid off, or at least disappear.

That's important because many title lenders like to lend more money than their most unsophisticated customers can ever hope to repay in the life of the loan, which typically is just 30 days.

As a result, borrowers need to renew their loans. That means more loan fees — which can amount to 300 percent annual interest.

Pretty soon, borrowers are renewing and renewing and paying only the interest on their loans.

After several months, those combined interest payments exceed the original loan amount, but the cycle continues. When borrowers can't afford to pay anymore, the repo man pays them a visit.

Missouri's title loan law aimed to combat this cycle, or at least limit how long it can drag on. It restricts lender ability to renew the high-interest loans by requiring that the principal of the third renewal — and any subsequent one — must decrease by an amount equal to 10 percent of the first loan's principal.

Here's how the state regulations sum up the purpose of the law: "The General Assembly has clearly indicated that no borrower is to be indebted to a title lender for any great period of time."

But lenders who want to keep borrowers in an endless repayment cycle have an easy way out.

They decide that — contrary to their business practices and, often, even their own business names — they aren't title lenders.

As I reported six months ago, more than 20 percent of Missouri's 298 licensed title-lending locations are licensed to deal in small loans, and about a third of the licensed title lenders also peddle installment loans. There's no way to know how many of their loans are classified under regulatory schemes.

Some title-loan companies don't even bother with the pretense of being licensed as title lenders.

There are 115 licensed lenders with the word "title" in their names — companies such as Title Cash of Missouri, Title Lenders of Missouri, Title Loan Co. and TitleMax — that aren't licensed at all as title lenders. These companies deal exclusively in other, less regulated loan types.

A bill filed in the Missouri Senate could close the loophole.

The legislation, which is sponsored by Sen. Joe Keaveny, D-St. Louis, would apply Missouri's title loan law to what the bill calls "disguised" title loans offered by companies that have "engaged in subterfuge" to avoid the principal-reduction requirement.

In addition, the bill would prohibit any lender from using terms like "title loans," "title lending" or any other words suggesting a title-loan operation unless it was licensed as a title lender. (Violators would be guilty of breaking Missouri's Merchandising Practices Act, the state's main consumer-fraud law.)

If the perennially doomed legislative attempt to cap interest on payday loans is any guide, Keaveny's bill will be a tough sell in Jefferson City.

After all, the consumer-loan industry is exceedingly generous to legislators who vote in its interests.

I asked Keaveny if he thinks legislators might consider reining in title lenders masquerading as anything else.

"I don't want to say I'm optimistic, but I'm going to push it," he said. "We've already got laws on the book. All this would do is make us enforce them."

signing off

For two years, I've been writing about consumer news, with a focus on predatory and deceptive business practices. I'll keep writing for the paper, but this will be my last Savvy Consumer column. My colleague Kavita Kumar will be launching a replacement column soon, focusing on both consumer affairs and the retail landscape.

My favorite columns almost always started with reader tips. I'll always be grateful to those of you who shared consumer horror stories or dropped a dime on your employer when you felt it was doing something wrong. Thanks.