Anti-mustachian radio ad

[RetiredAt63]

Ottawa radio station: the ad is for renting a furnace (don't people usually buy furnaces?)  Plot: Wife wants husband to buy a new furnace (name brand of the furnace is the point of the ad), husband rents instead.  In the ad we hear a truck beeping as it backs up to their house, with the money husband is "saving" by renting he has bought a big screen TV so big it needs a huge truck to be delivered. At least the wife is not happy, so there is one sensible person in that fantasy family.

I was driving and shaking my head - bad enough to rent TVs and furniture, but your furnace?  In Ottawa?

[pachnik]

Wow, renting a furnace?

I've been listening to the radio more these days since my newish job isn't on transit so I drive.  The ads are amazing - ads for big trucks, ads for people who want to buy a car but have crappy credit and ads for companies where you can get a second or third mortgage if the banks won't have you.   Mind you, the ads on the transit system were for things like consumer proposals and bankruptcy trustees.

[dycker1978]

The norm here is to rent your hot water heater... only $10 a month or $120 a year.  Well you can get a new heater for $2-300 and it will last 8-10 years, if you maintain it so...

[frugalnacho]

Ottawa radio station: the ad is for renting a furnace (don't people usually buy furnaces?)  Plot: Wife wants husband to buy a new furnace (name brand of the furnace is the point of the ad), husband rents instead.  In the ad we hear a truck beeping as it backs up to their house, with the money husband is "saving" by renting he has bought a big screen TV so big it needs a huge truck to be delivered. At least the wife is not happy, so there is one sensible person in that fantasy family.

I was driving and shaking my head - bad enough to rent TVs and furniture, but your furnace?  In Ottawa?

Wait a minute...why didn't he just rent an even bigger tv instead of buying one like a sucka? 

[GuitarStv]

We have door to door salesmen come by every few weeks trying to get us to switch our rental water heater and to 'upgrade' our furnace with a high efficiency rental one.  When I point out that we own our water heater and furnace and it would be stupid to rent one they get discouraged and leave.

The whole concept is fundamentally flawed.  I've run the numbers for the prices on water heaters, and you end up breaking even buying after about 3-4 years.  Most water heaters have warranties for longer than that.  It's no different for furnaces.  What a racket.

[Elderwood17]

I had no clue you could even rent a heater!

[dan D]

I stopped listening to the Mark Maron WTF  podcast a few months ago when one of his new sponsors was some sort of loan shark agency encouraging listeners to take out loans for luxury items.
That, in conjunction with starting to read MMM was enough to make me quit listening.

I didn't write in to tell him.  I suppose I should. ....

[RetiredAt63]

Re renting water heaters, Hydro Quebec used to rent them, and they would come and replace it when it needed replacing.  All our houses in Quebec came with rented heaters.
In Ontario the thing seems to be to own them.

Back to the ad - if you don't pay the rental, they can take away your furnace, but so what?  If you don't pay for the TV, they will take it away - now that is SERIOUS!!!

[Eric]

Ottawa radio station: the ad is for renting a furnace (don't people usually buy furnaces?)  Plot: Wife wants husband to buy a new furnace (name brand of the furnace is the point of the ad), husband rents instead.  In the ad we hear a truck beeping as it backs up to their house, with the money husband is "saving" by renting he has bought a big screen TV so big it needs a huge truck to be delivered. At least the wife is not happy, so there is one sensible person in that fantasy family.

I was driving and shaking my head - bad enough to rent TVs and furniture, but your furnace?  In Ottawa?

Wait a minute...why didn't he just rent an even bigger tv instead of buying one like a sucka?

Hahaha!  Exactly! 

[Sid Hoffman]

Renting, or its companion "Rent To Own" is a way to get around usury laws that forbid excessive interest rates.  You can go to www.rentacenter.com and look at some of their fine print:

Toshiba 32" TV, $632 "same as cash" price, 65 worry-free payments, Total Price: $1039.35

Meanwhile the exact same TV by part number and everything is only $225 from Amazon.com and chances are RTO is getting them for even less, since I am seeing specials for 32" TVs for $160 all the time.

The RTO place has you on the hook for up to $1039 worth of payments for a TV you can buy from Amazon for less than a quarter of the same cost, or you can buy a similar 32" TV for a sixth of the same cost.  That's without even talking about what RTO places charge in late fees.  They are just like so many other businesses designed to make money off people who have poor impulse control and/or no financial education or desire to do the math on their decisions.

[commodore perry]

this all hurts my brain so much!!!

[EricL]

Wow. Only renting used chewing gum is crazier than that.

[MoneyCat]

If you can, I recommend buying a Sirius satellite radio with a lifetime subscription off eBay, so you never have to listen to radio commercials again.  Sirius no longer sells lifetime subscriptions, but people sell their old radios on eBay all the time.  I got one for my wife for Christmas last year for about $400 with a boombox speaker system included.  It pays for itself after two years of usage (at current Sirius monthly subscription prices) and then you have 160+ channels of crystal-clear commercial-free radio for the lifetime of the radio.  I haven't been exposed to idiotic radio ads in a long time.

[RetiredAt63]

I like to listen to commercial radio, it keeps me in touch.  I don't have commercial TV any more, and I basically only listen to the radio when I am driving.  However, it is interspersed with CBC and CDs, it does not work as a steady diet.  I suppose if I had to drive a lot, Sirius would be nice.

This is a station I love to yell at.  One talk show host, a few years ago, said that people shouldn't retire because then they are not working and not paying taxes and contributing to the fiscal life of the country.  Huh?  I am paying LOTS of income tax every year (because I have retirement income).  I am sure anyone in Ottawa can ID both the station and the host  ;-)

My radio reception at home is horrible (joys of country living) and so planned listening is on line, live stream or podcast.

[MrsPete]

I had no clue you could even rent a heater!

Neither did I.  However, in my town I've seen rent-to-own tires and storage sheds. 

[Sid Hoffman]

Neither did I.  However, in my town I've seen rent-to-own tires and storage sheds.

Yep, and they target poor people who are trying to look rich, which in turn only serves to keep them poor.

RentAWheel.com

Again, it's just a ploy to get around usery laws.  Right on their website they state you get a "50% discount" if you pay in cash after making payments for at least 13 weeks.  In other words, you are going to pay >100% interest to take out a loan on the wheels, but by calling it a rental instead of a loan, they pretend they aren't charging you >100% interest.

[skyrefuge]

Re renting water heaters, Hydro Quebec used to rent them, and they would come and replace it when it needed replacing.  All our houses in Quebec came with rented heaters. In Ontario the thing seems to be to own them.

Ok, so this seems to be a bit of a Canadian thing (I've never heard of rental water heaters or furnaces in the US, though some Google searching reveals that it is a thing, but it seems not as big as it is in Canada).

I'm just really curious why it's a thing. While it sounds like it's not a better deal than owning, it also doesn't sound like a ridiculous usurious scheme like Rent-a-Center or tire rentals. So I'm wondering if there was some social force or economic theory that caused the practice to become widespread in Canada. Any ideas?

Best I could find was here: http://forums.redflagdeals.com/great-water-heater-rental-scam-1126945/

I'm not sure how the rental business evolved here. Other parts of the country seem to be less affected by this blatant money grab. One theory is, local utilities, in an attempt at conservation, (natural gas vs. electric), offered rental units to homeowners as a way to conserve, and offset the cost of a new install by offering a rental program. Many of them had a pay-to-own option. Another theory is that new home builders could drop their price slightly by including a rental w/h unit in their homes. Then, at some point, a bean counter realised this was a huge profit centre. Thus the scam began.

No idea if any of that is true, but it at least nicely supports my initial feeling that there might have been a pseudo-benevolent origin to the practice.

[dragoncar]

I'll admit it... I used to rent a water heater and a furnace!  They were included in the rent for my apartment.

[RetiredAt63]

Both my house electric hot water heaters in Quebec were rented from Hydro Quebec.  It is pretty common, not sure how it started.  In Ontario I have owned them.  Given the leak in my last one, I wish it had been rented!

[robotclown]

Anyone who puts trucks beeping, police sirens, or honking horns in their radio ad needs to die in a fire.

[Hedge_87]

Anyone who puts trucks beeping, police sirens, or honking horns in their radio ad needs to die in a fire.

exactly! The police sirens always get me looking!

[Rezdent]

I consider practically ALL advertising to be anti - mustachian.
Mustachian advertising - would that be an oxymoron?  Because if a business was truly promoting MMM values wouldn't they be trying to persuade folks to not buy their products?

[RWD]

If you can, I recommend buying a Sirius satellite radio with a lifetime subscription off eBay, so you never have to listen to radio commercials again.  Sirius no longer sells lifetime subscriptions, but people sell their old radios on eBay all the time.  I got one for my wife for Christmas last year for about $400 with a boombox speaker system included.  It pays for itself after two years of usage (at current Sirius monthly subscription prices) and then you have 160+ channels of crystal-clear commercial-free radio for the lifetime of the radio.  I haven't been exposed to idiotic radio ads in a long time.

Or save more by not listening to radio at all? I just stick a USB drive full of mp3 files into my car and at home I have my computer hooked up to my speakers.

[The Guru]

From the RentAWheel website: "Keep more money in your wallet with our flexible buying programs".

No one sees this as violation of usury laws; apparently there's no worry about truth in advertising, either.

[GuitarStv]

I consider practically ALL advertising to be anti - mustachian.
Mustachian advertising - would that be an oxymoron?  Because if a business was truly promoting MMM values wouldn't they be trying to persuade folks to not buy their products?

Not necessarily.  I think that mustachian advertising would be along the lines of explaining a new invention to a potential consumer with no real pressure to buy.

[frugalnacho]

I consider practically ALL advertising to be anti - mustachian.
Mustachian advertising - would that be an oxymoron?  Because if a business was truly promoting MMM values wouldn't they be trying to persuade folks to not buy their products?

Not necessarily.  I think that mustachian advertising would be along the lines of explaining a new invention to a potential consumer with no real pressure to buy.

Also I think MMM is anti needless consumption, not consumption in general.  After all he still has a bike, and a computer, and a house, and tools, and cloths, and a vehicle, and a cell phone, and he eats food and he travels.  He still consumes, just not needlessly or ridiculously. 

[Reepekg]

I consider practically ALL advertising to be anti - mustachian.
Mustachian advertising - would that be an oxymoron?  Because if a business was truly promoting MMM values wouldn't they be trying to persuade folks to not buy their products?

MMM himself hawks all kinds of things... Lending Club, Personal Capital, Republic Wireless, Uber, Costco, Bike Nashbar, Home Depot, the list goes on

[RetiredAt63]

Aah, but the car is my radio time, keeps me tuned in to the world - until I can't stand it any more.  I almost never listen at home, or when doing short drives.  So maybe 2 hours maximum/week? 

Plus, since I am retired I don't get tidbits for "Overheard at work" and since I am not on Facebook I can't do "overheard on Facebook" - and why is it "overheard"?  Shouldn't it be "seen"?  So this is my main source of idiocy, especially the station  I listen to (keeps my blood pressure up).

Otherwise, music or blessed quiet.

If you can, I recommend buying a Sirius satellite radio with a lifetime subscription off eBay, so you never have to listen to radio commercials again.    . . . . .

Or save more by not listening to radio at all? I just stick a USB drive full of mp3 files into my car and at home I have my computer hooked up to my speakers.