A specific circle of hell is reserved for those who run payday loan companies. To take Scott tucker. He made a deal with the devil. Tucker, a former professional racing car driver, has built an illegal payday lending empire and is currently serving a 16-year and 8-month prison sentence. Why? Because his $ 2 billion payday loan business has destroyed people’s lives, exploiting 4.5 million consumers through deceptive loan terms and illegal interest rates. Tucker now resides not only in prison, but also in the Eighth Circle of Hell for scammers.

Imagine how many more lives Tucker could have destroyed if he also had a payday loan application in the Google play store?

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The institution of payday loans is the worst of predatory capitalism; it attacks the desperate and the impoverished, literally destroying people’s lives as they surrender in a snowball effect of debt with outrageous interest rates and questionable terms. Some people end up taking out additional payday loans just to pay off the debt incurred on the original payday loans. There are far too many sad horror stories. Imagine a man’s Kafka-esque hell who took out a payday loan of $ 2,500 for a medical emergency and was left with a debt of $ 50,000 due to interest payments.

Of course, you can cancel this scenario as a one-time event. But according to the National Center for Consumer LawThis is too typical a result with payday loans. As noted in the centre’s report on predatory loan: “Annual interest rates of 300% to 1000% or more are often disguised by the structure of the loan.

In comparison, the APR on credit cards typically ranges from 12% to 30%. Crunch the numbers. Do the math. The results are equal in criminal matters. Payday loan companies know exactly what they are doing and are preying on people at the bottom.

Basically, the business strategy of payday loan companies is: let’s target low income people who are struggling to get by and change them a 100% interest rate.

Still not sold on the nastiness of payday loan companies? Here is what Jean Olivier had to say about them.

As you can see, payday loan companies are pure evil, operate through predatory means and, guess what, these companies have applications as well. Yes, if you have a shady business practice, why not spread it to the masses? Specific state laws may prohibit this type of short term, high interest rate loans. But an app circumvents these so-called “state laws”. A payday loan app can inflict all the predatory damage of a payday loan to anyone in the world right from their smartphone.

And, surprisingly, it took Google that long to figure out that payday loans are a bad thing. The tech giant recently announced that it was ban these apps from the Play Store. A Google spokesperson said The Wall Street Journal, the company banned payday loan applications that use “deceptive and exploitative” personal loan terms.

It was a long time ago, Google.

In 2016, Google stopped showing ads for payday loan companies. To be more specific, Google has banned ads for loans with repayment terms of less than 60 days, as well as ads for loan companies with an annual percentage rate of 36% or more. Banned payday loan ads are in good company; Google also refuses to advertise weapons (especially firearms), tobacco products and recreational drugs.

Apple, on the other hand, does not have this type of ban on payday loan applications. Yes, for now, Apple agrees with these practices. A spokesperson for Apple said to WSJ that it regularly revises its App Store rules to “address new or emerging issues.”

Well, Apple, maybe it’s time for a routine review of a not-so-new problem.

Another problem to be solved: Google and other tech giants have the power to crush an entire vertical company, if they choose. They also have the power to drive change in terms of questionable business practices. In the case of payday loan applications, this would reduce their criminal percentage rate.

Meanwhile, 16 years from now, when Scott Tucker is released from prison, he can start a new life designing payday loan apps for the Apple App Store.