Plain Green Loans Lawsuit: Allegations, Payouts, and Rulings

The Plain Green loans lawsuit refers to a wave of class actions and a Consumer Financial Protection Bureau enforcement action alleging that Plain Green, LLC — nominally owned by the Chippewa Cree Tribe — was a front for Texas-based Think Finance, Inc., which used tribal sovereign immunity as cover to issue online loans at roughly 200% to 700% APR. The cases ended in settlements worth close to $1 billion in combined cash and canceled debt for more than a million borrowers, plus a separate $384 million CFPB distribution that began going out in May 2024.¹²

What the Lawsuits Alleged

Plain Green opened in 2011 and approved more than 121,000 loans in its first year, offering installment loans of $200 to $4,500 with APRs that commonly ran from 199% to 699%.³⁴ One 91-year-old Bay Area veteran was charged a 682% rate on a $900 loan and paid $2,646.69 in interest even though he repaid the principal within about two months.⁵

The suits alleged that Think Finance, led by CEO Kenneth Rees, designed and ran the operation while the Chippewa Cree Tribe collected less than 5% of the profits. According to the CFPB, Think Finance handled the marketing, websites, call routing, customer service training, loan origination software, servicing platforms, and debt-collector referrals for Plain Green, Great Plains Lending (Otoe-Missouria Tribe), and MobiLoans (Tunica-Biloxi Tribe).⁶⁷ Regulators and plaintiffs’ lawyers called the structure a “rent-a-tribe” scheme built to sidestep state usury caps and licensing rules. The CFPB later alleged Think Finance illegally collected on loans that were void under the laws of 17 states, made deceptive demands, and pulled money from bank accounts for debts not legally owed.¹

What Borrowers Recovered

Across all cases, consumers received about $150 million in cash and more than $750 million in canceled debt.² The recovery came in pieces:

The Think Finance bankruptcy settlement in 2019 delivered over $55 million in cash and roughly $380 million in debt forgiveness, deleting about 920,000 loans from borrowers’ records.⁸
Gibbs v. Plain Green, LLC (2019) paid $12,350,000 in cash and canceled every Plain Green loan originated before June 1, 2016, and every Great Plains Lending loan.⁸
Gibbs v. TCV V, L.P. and Rees (2021) produced $57.3 million from investors TCV, Sequoia, and former CEO Kenneth Rees, along with nearly $383 million in additional debt cancellation by an associated collector.⁹
Gibbs v. Stinson and Elevate Credit (2022) added a $44.5 million global settlement, with Elevate Credit (a 2014 Think Finance spinoff) paying $33 million.¹⁰
The MobiLoans settlement canceled every MobiLoans debt originated before May 6, 2017.⁸

All the class settlements included removing negative trade lines from consumer credit reports.⁸ Pennsylvania’s Attorney General received a separate $2 million payment resolving state enforcement claims.¹¹

Did Borrowers Need to File a Claim?

No. Class members received their benefits automatically, with no claim forms required.⁸ That mattered because in the Think Finance bankruptcy the initial claims response rate was described by the court as “vanishingly small,” with fewer than 1% of affected borrowers filing individual proofs of claim; the court then permitted class treatment under Bankruptcy Rule 7023 so relief could flow to everyone without individual filings.¹²

The CFPB relief is separate. In May 2024 the Bureau began sending $384,009,580.74 to 191,672 harmed consumers from its victims relief fund, averaging about $2,003 per person.¹¹³ The CFPB consent order itself, entered February 6, 2020, imposed a nominal civil penalty of $7 — one dollar per Think Finance entity — with the real consumer money coming through the relief fund distribution.⁶

The Rulings That Made Recovery Possible

Two appellate decisions cleared the path for borrowers to sue. In Gingras v. Think Finance, Inc., 922 F.3d 112 (2d Cir. 2019), decided April 24, 2019, the Second Circuit held that Plain Green’s arbitration agreements were “both unenforceable and unconscionable” and called the arbitration provisions a “farce” designed to insulate the defendants from federal and state consumer protection claims. The panel also held that tribal sovereign immunity did not shield tribal officers from suit in their official capacity for injunctive relief, reasoning that the tribe and its officers “are not free to operate outside of Indian lands without conforming their conduct in these areas to federal and state law.”¹⁴

Earlier, in Finn v. Great Plains Lending, LLC (10th Cir., June 1, 2017), the Tenth Circuit had vacated a dismissal on tribal-immunity grounds, ruling that borrowers were entitled to jurisdictional discovery into whether Think Finance actually controlled the tribal lender rather than relying on the paperwork alone.¹⁵⁸⁷

Where Things Stand Now

Judge Lauck granted final approval of the last set of settlements on August 16, 2022, closing out the class litigation.²¹⁶

The Plain Green cases are over, so there is no active class you can join and no open claim window. If you had a Plain Green, Great Plains Lending, or MobiLoans loan within the settlement periods, the cash payment and debt cancellation should have been applied automatically and the negative credit reporting removed. Separately, if you were among the 191,672 consumers identified by the CFPB, the Bureau began mailing payments in 2024 through its victims relief fund.¹³

The rulings from the Second, Tenth, and now Third Circuits have narrowed the ground on which online tribal lenders can claim sovereign immunity. The Third Circuit’s August 4, 2025 decision in Ransom v. GreatPlains Finance, LLC (No. 24-1908) held that the defendant was not an “arm of the tribe,” pointing to a $10 million loan agreement with private-equity firm Newport Funding that restricted tribal control and to the absence of any demonstrated revenue contribution to the tribe.¹⁷ Tribal-affiliated lending offering loans at rates between 400% and 600% APR still operates in states that have not effectively restricted it.⁵

1
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. CFPB Will Distribute More Than $384 Million to Consumers Deceived by Think Finance
2
Tycko & Zavareei LLP. Final Approval Granted in Last of Think Finance Settlements
3
WalletHub. Plain Green Loans Review
4
Great Falls Tribune. Tribally-Owned Lender Sued Over Predatory Loan Practices
5
ABC7 News. 91-Year-Old Bay Area Veteran Faces Snowballing Payday Loan
6
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Think Finance, LLC Enforcement Action
7
Top Class Actions. Tribal Lenders Face RICO Class Action Lawsuit
8
Tycko & Zavareei LLP. Final Approval Think Finance Payday Borrowers Settlements
9
Orrick InfoBytes. Gibbs v. Stinson Memorandum in Support of Settlement
10
Texas Lawbook. Fort Worth Fintech Firm Settles Massive Litigation for $33M
11
Pennsylvania Attorney General. Think Finance Global Settlement and Restructuring Term Sheet
12
U.S. Bankruptcy Court, Northern District of Texas. Think Finance Applying Rule 23 to Proofs of Claim
13
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Payments to Harmed Consumers – Think Finance
14
Berman Tabacco. Major Win in Second Circuit for Victims of Plain Green Online Lending Scheme
15
Native American Rights Fund. Finn v. Great Plains Lending
16
SFNet. Think Finance Reorganizes and Exits Bankruptcy Protection
17
U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. Ransom v. GreatPlains Finance, LLC