PROVO, Utah – Does doing business in a squeaky-clean state improve the reputation of a sleazy industry, particularly if the sleazy industry points an accusing finger at a presumptively even sleazier industry?Possibly, if the state is Utah, the sleazy industry is quick-cash loans and the accused is adult entertainment.
On Monday, CashTree.com distributed a press release trumpeting the lender’s “effort to showcase the philanthropic efforts of the quick-loan lending industry” by supporting the non-profit, anti-porn organization S.A. Lifeline Foundation.
S.A. Lifeline, based in Orem, Utah, offers “sexual addiction information, education and recovery services to those suffering from pornography addiction,” according to the organization’s mission statement. The foundation has close ties to the Mormon Church.
CashTree, which also claims to be based in Utah, actually is registered in the U.S. Virgin Islands—where both individuals and corporations are exempt from Internal Revenue Service regulations. USVI is a popular offshore location for financial concerns that wish to avoid scrutiny of their books.
How interesting, then, that CashTree spokesperson Jason Blackburn said the company’s main goal in supporting the work of S.A. Lifeline is to “shed light” on the positive side of the quick-loans industry and CashTree in particular.
“[T]he payday loan industry has gotten an inaccurate reputation as a greedy one,” the press release notes. “Instead, Blackburn said he hopes that other payday loan companies will increase their support of much-needed organizations like SALifeline.org.”
Indeed, the payday loan industry seems constantly to be under fire somewhere for some evidence of greed — from exorbitant fees to engendering a sort of addiction of their own, wherein a snowball effect overtakes some customers who eventually find themselves running from one payday loan office to another in order to pay off previous notes and keep themselves afloat.
Blackburn said CashTree felt a particular affinity for S.A. Lifeline’s mission, because “like the payday loan industry, sexual addiction maintains a stigma that makes the topic taboo in many circumstances.”
