A trade group representing short-term online lenders has launched a new effort to weed out its industry's shady characters after a newspaper found several lenders make misleading claims on their websites.

The Online Lenders Alliance has hired an outside firm to build a program to identify online lending sites promising customers "no credit check," the Los Angeles Times reported. Earlier this year, the newspaper investigated several sites making such claims and found that many of them were not being truthful.

If OLA discovers a lender promising no credit check, it will ask them to take down the claim, the Times reported.

OLA CEO Lisa McGreevy said her group has done similar monitoring before but only manually. This will be the first time the association has taken a more systematic approach to the problem.

"We're trying to be the cop on the beat," McGreevy said. "We're not interested in having bad actors or people who do fraudulent business giving our good lenders a bad name."

If a lender is found to advertise "no credit check" on its website, OLA will look for language on the site that is against the association's rules, even if the company is a nonmember, McGreevy said. She promised to report bad actors to both OLA members and law enforcement. http://lat.ms/29N6L5M

MORE CEO DATELINE

• Music group to fund diversity initiatives after CEO booted for alleged racial remarks
• Organic association facing revolt on GMO labeling bill
• Veterinarian association to vote on whether top staff should be vets
• Beer Institute members agree to use nutrition labels
• Telecom associations object to FCC broadband privacy rules