According to Forbes Outted Troll Fired. Michael Brutsch, the
Arlington, Texas man who doubled as Violentacrez, a troll fired.
interesting story on bottom feeders.
Image via CrunchBase
First Cash Financial Services (FCFS) is in a line of business that
preys on the weakest people in our society. So it comes as little
surprise that up until October 12, it employed an online purveyor of
pictures of scantily clad, under-age girls.
This goes to show that even the worst corporate actors have standards
of decency. It was fine for First Cash to employ Michael Brutsch, the
Arlington, Texas man who doubled as Violentacrez, a troll on Reddit
Рowned by Advance News and recently split off from Cond̩ Nast. But
First Cash drew the line on Brutsch after
Gawker connected his real name with First Cash.
Before getting into the foul actions that sparked commenters on Reddit to propel Brutsch to the top of
Reddit’s subreddits
— a collection of online discussion topics — let’s take a look at the
business that kept Brutsch employed between 2004 and October 13, 2012 –
First Cash.
First Cash runs 720 pawn shops in eight US states and 23 Mexican ones. According to its
2012 10K,
it makes loans at rates that “range from 12% to 300% annually.” And
those high rates make it very profitable — its revenues are up
24% to $545 million in
the last year while profits soared 38% to $74 million as its store
openings grew about 10%. The result: First Cash earns fat margins of
13.4% – and it’s trading at a cheap P/E of 18.6.
In earning those profits, First Cash is not above a little mayhem.
For example, it employed Brutsch and Gawker suggests that his boss at
First Cash knew of about his Reddit work. In case you are not familiar
with it – Brutsch, who went by the handle, Violentacrez, was the
mastermind behind a broad collection of online filth.
While most of it cannot be described politely, a listing of the names
of Brutsch’s subreddits can give you a flavor: ”Chokeabitch,
Niggerjailbait, Rapebait, Hitler, Jewmerica, Misogyny, Incest,”
according to
Gawker.
What does this have to do with First Cash? According to
Gawker, Brutsch had told his boss there about his pending outing by
Gawker in the week before he was fired. And the question that comes to
my mind is how long First Cash knew about Brutsch’s extra-curricular
activities before he got fired.
As
Brutsch wrote on
October 15, “Well, I had already told my boss about the impending
article last week. He thought I was exaggerating the potential fallout.
So when he called Saturday morning, I just said, “Told you so”. He said
not to come in Monday..”
There are no doubt people who believe Brutsch has the right to
express himself however he wants. And there are others who believe that
First Cash is providing a valuable service to the public by charging
people 300% interest rates to borrow money.
The interesting thing to me is that a company that is quite
comfortable ripping off the poor by extracting such enormous rates of
interest has no problem employing someone who runs a site called
R/Jailbait featuring phrases such as “Keep a teen off the streets — put
her in your van!” —
prompting the outrage of Anderson Cooper.
But what bothers the pawn shop purveyor is that its good name is now
connected with Brutsch’s. Or at least it was until it fired him over the
phone on October 13.
Even First Cash has standards of decency. See how well the “free market” works!
Just Come Real..
