I wish the people rent-to-own was targeted at knew that it was so toxic.
Clearly they're targeting people who aren't all that smart:
- When Melinda Sandlin walked out of Discount Furniture in Austin in late 2014, she was sure the store had put her on a payment plan to buy a new bedroom suite worth $2,750 ... A year later, after realizing she had sent in more than $3,000 for her seven-piece set, she figured she was done.
Do you just "figure" you're done paying off a debt? - Otis Keels was arrested over a dispute involving a $1,320 set of custom wheels and tires he leased from Rent-N-Roll. Keels, a maintenance supervisor at an elementary school, spent three hours in jail after he was late on payments and did not return the rims.
Who rents-to-own wheels? Who needs wheels costing more than $1000? Who needs custom wheels? - She said a string of personal calamities — she lost her job, got evicted from her home and briefly went to jail for driving with an invalid license — overwhelmed her and she forgot to make payments after she put the furniture into storage.
Okay, going to jail for driving with an invalid license isn't a personal calamity; it's a stupid mistake. Note that she was making payments on rented furniture that was in storage. - “Back in the ‘70s, you could rent a $10,000 compressor and never take it back and nothing would happen to you,” said Phillips, who is now retired.
Is he pretending it was okay to steal rental tools then?- Sandlin said she never would have signed the contract if she’d known she was actually doing business with a rent-to-own company.
This is stupid, but I blame part of it on the word "lease". So many people don't know it's a synonym for "rent". - “She's an educated woman. She wasn't going to sign anything she didn't understand,” Tovar said.
Doubtful. And the rent-to-own place tries to pretend it's the victim: “What are we supposed to do, just write off that each time a customer skips out on us?” said Darrell Perkins, store manager for Advantage Furniture in McLennan County. “Then people aren't making no money ‘cause you're giving all your merchandise away.”
I'm a multimillionaire, and my bedroom furniture probably cost half that- including the sheets and pillowcases.
Yeah, and I've been sleeping for a decade and a half in a bed that originally belonged to my grandparents. I know they bought it used at an auction. And I'm rich! What ARE they thinking?