Posted on 02/16/2015 10:43:40 AM PST by Berlin_Freeper
There’s a minor domestic crisis in any family when the fridge-freezer breaks down. Wasted food; no fresh milk; pools of water on the kitchen floor. But for some households, the demise of the washing machine, the tumble dryer or the telly is more than a hiccup – it throws up a major financial challenge.
That’s where firms like BrightHouse come in: pop into one of its 291 stores, and instead of having to find several hundred pounds up front, you can replace a busted appliance for a much more manageable £10-£15 a week.
Except there’s a sting in the tail. When MPs on the all-party parliamentary group on debt and personal finance looked into these “rent-to-own” retailers, of which BrightHouse is the leader, they found that by the time delivery charges, insurance and servicing are loaded on, consumers who can ill afford it end up paying several times over. One fridge-freezer with a five-year service plan, which sells for £644 at middle-class favourite John Lewis, ended up costing £1,716.
(Excerpt) Read more at theguardian.com ...
We have that scam here. It’s called “Rent To Own”.
Rent-A-Center, anyone?
Sixty pounds a month?
Highway robbery.
Funny that the Guardian objects to that, since their soon to come Sharia state will have taxes that’ll shake the scales of their very little tallywackers.
My dryer quit about 10 years ago.
I hang my clothes on the line during the summer and during the winter I hang them on the sun porch where a space heater provides heat.
When I lived there, cheap, small fridges were the norm, milk was delivered to the doorstep daily and didn’t need refrigeration, and daily shopping at the market, bakery, etc., was common too.
My niece lives in London. When she went to school there years ago she rented a house with a bunch of other kids. The heat (electric?) was paid for ahead of time. They went to the electric company across town, put $400 on some sort of card, and then put the card in the meter at their house. (Goofy)
I don’t recall the actual numbers, but the $400 lasted them 11 days or something stupid - then the heat turned off! Then back across town (buses, subways, etc.) to add more mony to the card.
It sounds REALLY expensive over there.
WHAT? They already do...this is the affect. 19% VAT on everything, TV tax, radio tax...just like the Beatles said. The fact that the oppressive taxation is never mentioned in articles such as this demonstrates the problem. Socialists are so stupid they’ll be homeless and starving without being to identify their real problems!
It’s expensive but not really a scam when you consider that you’re extending credit to people who don’t have a few hundred dollars cash and don’t have a credit card. I’m pretty sure the default rate is astronomical.
Ten bucks says they don’t have to rent their beer,their fags or their football tickets.
Am I the only freeper who thinks that this is just good old fashioned capitalism? Years ago when I decided to open my own office I rented furniture for a year or two. I could afford to pay the $60/mo but didn’t want to invest in a lot of stuff before I saw how it went. I’m now surrounded by stuff that I won’t value so I won’t have the tax man knocking on my door. LOL but I do have a two hundred year old solid walnut desk which is not ever going to move again since it now lives in my home office.
Impressive! Our dryer has been acting up for a while. I use the clothesline in the spring, summer and fall; but in the winter have no where inside to hang clothes for our family of eight. Right now we just smack it a few times to get the drum spinning.
I guess even Valerie Jarrett knew this was not the time to bring up the Crusades, the only time these bigots.seem to mention Christians.
If Britain deported all its Muslims, there would be plenty of jobs for native Brits.
the dole probably pays better
I don’t know how my wife and I ever managed to survive during our early years, when our combined income was very, very middling and we had two children. Perhaps it had something to do with the fact that we were married, emotionally mature, didn’t spend money on things we didn’t need, saved whatever we could, and kept our credit sound.
There was a recent article which highlighted a muslim woman unemployed with 6 kids in London. Welfare rented her a house costing 10,000 USD per month.
Most of the Brit Muzzies are on the dole, not working.
What I don't understand is why, if you've got sixty pounds (around $100 U.S.) per month to spend on rental payments, you couldn't have been putting some of that money into a contingency fund, against a problem like your refrigerator going out. Or even making a responsible purchase on credit so you could establish credit for such a emergency.
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