Rent A Center ripoff Inglewood California

Please don't let this one store paint a picture for the whole company. Sometimes bad management will cause bad customer service. I believe your claim and wish there is something I could do to make it better. I am a manager for the company and HUGE on customer service. Yes, you pay a little more for the items. Though if you were my customer, you could never put a price on the service you would receive. I hope they have made some changes in that store and I recommend calling a the customer hotline (which you can get at any store) and speak out! Your problems will be fixed. Rent A Center is not like every other company. We will go out of our way to fix problems that you have with a store. Call and see for your self. Happy renting and GAME ON!

i have done businees with rent a canter for about 2 years now paying on the same item. I am buying a dell computer from them. At the time i bought the computer dell had the "same" computer advertised for $499.00 but do to some credit problems at the time i had to go through them and pay triple that. Well when i got it home i opened it hooked it up and was so proud of my nice "new" computer. Well after i hooked it up to the internet and entered the service tag on dell's site it gave a list of what software and hardware that is installed at the factory. Well guess what mine didnt come with a Cd burner just a DVD ROM. I printed out the paper and took it right down to them (RAC). They said that it wasnt new that i had got one that was just brought back. Well I told them I would keep it and just pay on it. I have paid on it until this day and so far have paid $3,149.53 for it. This is because after the 90sac they only put 41 percent of your total payment toward what you owe. In Wisconson RAC had to pay over 1.4million back to people because they were chargeing more intrest than principle.

I have two difrent reports, We have 5 stores in a 10 mile area of were we live.

my first store was ok paid for the stuff on time . the sales manager left so I went to a nother store first it was the computer that kept on breaking down . so I went to the other store Picked up a tv in all i have purchesed about 7 things from rent a center stores each store is diffrent.

Sometimes you get great peoplo but after i sued them twice for difrent reasons noen of the other stores would take my business anymore, thats ok thats their right just as much as its my right to make sure i get good equitment for what i pay.

I wanted to make that clear beacusse of the two difrent repsonces.I have.

Lets face it if I pay 1500 for a cumputer or 1000 for a tv It better be in prime condition and not a "used" Iteam.

Sorry rent is trully a sad company, I used rent a center before and we ended up paying doubble on a lot of things. I will never do any sort of transaction with them again.

I was a day late with a payment because i was driving a truck at the time i was not home
the Idiot sales driver showed up at my door with his truck, my wife tould them that i would be home in the morning and would pay them when the store opened. they showed up at 9 pm at night.

The driver made her feel real small and said what you hubby did'nt leave you any money. They said they were going to take the stuff and procceeded to try to enter the house, my wife shut the door in is face and she called the police they came and tould them because it was after 9 pm to go get out our they would arrest them for tresspassing.

when I got home the next morning i pulled my truck in the rent a center lot and waited for them to open I then tould the mannager of the store who happened to be the same guy who showed up at the house to pick up his stuff iam done with > He then tould me he would be able to get down to the house untill the next day

I said to bad your comming today because I will be on the road again and your not going to bother my wife anymore. He said unless i Brought it back it would be the next day.

I said you think so, I walked out I called my lawyer he said as long as i don't damage it i can leave it out on the yard for them to pick up.

Thats what i did I left in the front yardwith a cover over it.

The guy showed up the next morning I was still home He said he was going to call the cops because i left in the yard I gave him my cell phone i said go ahead then i gave him my lawyers phone number as well.

I never hurd from the guy again.

so dont sit their and preach about what great service rent a center is or even that you don't charge more for the iteam beacuse you do charge more a lot more than what it would cost than buying it out right.

rent a center is nothing more than legal loan sharking. Next time i will charge it on my cridit card and pay less pecentage.

Sorry rent is trully a sad company, I used rent a center before and we ended up paying doubble on a lot of things. I will never do any sort of transaction with them again.

I was a day late with a payment because i was driving a truck at the time i was not home
the Idiot sales driver showed up at my door with his truck, my wife tould them that i would be home in the morning and would pay them when the store opened. they showed up at 9 pm at night.

The driver made her feel real small and said what you hubby did'nt leave you any money. They said they were going to take the stuff and procceeded to try to enter the house, my wife shut the door in is face and she called the police they came and tould them because it was after 9 pm to go get out our they would arrest them for tresspassing.

when I got home the next morning i pulled my truck in the rent a center lot and waited for them to open I then tould the mannager of the store who happened to be the same guy who showed up at the house to pick up his stuff iam done with > He then tould me he would be able to get down to the house untill the next day

I said to bad your comming today because I will be on the road again and your not going to bother my wife anymore. He said unless i Brought it back it would be the next day.

I said you think so, I walked out I called my lawyer he said as long as i don't damage it i can leave it out on the yard for them to pick up.

Thats what i did I left in the front yardwith a cover over it.

The guy showed up the next morning I was still home He said he was going to call the cops because i left in the yard I gave him my cell phone i said go ahead then i gave him my lawyers phone number as well.

I never hurd from the guy again.

so dont sit their and preach about what great service rent a center is or even that you don't charge more for the iteam beacuse you do charge more a lot more than what it would cost than buying it out right.

rent a center is nothing more than legal loan sharking. Next time i will charge it on my cridit card and pay less pecentage.

Sorry rent is trully a sad company, I used rent a center before and we ended up paying doubble on a lot of things. I will never do any sort of transaction with them again.

I was a day late with a payment because i was driving a truck at the time i was not home
the Idiot sales driver showed up at my door with his truck, my wife tould them that i would be home in the morning and would pay them when the store opened. they showed up at 9 pm at night.

The driver made her feel real small and said what you hubby did'nt leave you any money. They said they were going to take the stuff and procceeded to try to enter the house, my wife shut the door in is face and she called the police they came and tould them because it was after 9 pm to go get out our they would arrest them for tresspassing.

when I got home the next morning i pulled my truck in the rent a center lot and waited for them to open I then tould the mannager of the store who happened to be the same guy who showed up at the house to pick up his stuff iam done with > He then tould me he would be able to get down to the house untill the next day

I said to bad your comming today because I will be on the road again and your not going to bother my wife anymore. He said unless i Brought it back it would be the next day.

I said you think so, I walked out I called my lawyer he said as long as i don't damage it i can leave it out on the yard for them to pick up.

Thats what i did I left in the front yardwith a cover over it.

The guy showed up the next morning I was still home He said he was going to call the cops because i left in the yard I gave him my cell phone i said go ahead then i gave him my lawyers phone number as well.

I never hurd from the guy again.

so dont sit their and preach about what great service rent a center is or even that you don't charge more for the iteam beacuse you do charge more a lot more than what it would cost than buying it out right.

rent a center is nothing more than legal loan sharking. Next time i will charge it on my cridit card and pay less pecentage.

Sorry rent is trully a sad company, I used rent a center before and we ended up paying doubble on a lot of things. I will never do any sort of transaction with them again.

I was a day late with a payment because i was driving a truck at the time i was not home
the Idiot sales driver showed up at my door with his truck, my wife tould them that i would be home in the morning and would pay them when the store opened. they showed up at 9 pm at night.

The driver made her feel real small and said what you hubby did'nt leave you any money. They said they were going to take the stuff and procceeded to try to enter the house, my wife shut the door in is face and she called the police they came and tould them because it was after 9 pm to go get out our they would arrest them for tresspassing.

when I got home the next morning i pulled my truck in the rent a center lot and waited for them to open I then tould the mannager of the store who happened to be the same guy who showed up at the house to pick up his stuff iam done with > He then tould me he would be able to get down to the house untill the next day

I said to bad your comming today because I will be on the road again and your not going to bother my wife anymore. He said unless i Brought it back it would be the next day.

I said you think so, I walked out I called my lawyer he said as long as i don't damage it i can leave it out on the yard for them to pick up.

Thats what i did I left in the front yardwith a cover over it.

The guy showed up the next morning I was still home He said he was going to call the cops because i left in the yard I gave him my cell phone i said go ahead then i gave him my lawyers phone number as well.

I never hurd from the guy again.

so dont sit their and preach about what great service rent a center is or even that you don't charge more for the iteam beacuse you do charge more a lot more than what it would cost than buying it out right.

rent a center is nothing more than legal loan sharking. Next time i will charge it on my cridit card and pay less pecentage.

Charge you more than what the product is worth, I have Rented a number of times of of rent a center. The fact they prey off of peoplo with poor cridit. THe last time I rented off Rent a center i had a computer, I found out it was used when they tould me it was new, the fact that gave it away it was never cleaned out.

I asked for a discount on the product they said no. I said this is how you treat a customer who as delt with you for five years. I then tould them to pick up the dam cumputer that I Did not want it they waited 3 weeks to pick it up and tried to charge me for those 3 weeks. I said to them take it to court and tould the guy to get the heck off my property.

It has been a year since I have hurd from them

So make sure the product you are getting is new

Make sure you keep your contract.

Make sure you keep calling them when a product breaks down and they have to replace it with the same product and not a lesser one.

And I Don't care do price shopping before you buy anything from them. They do charge up to twice the vaule bye the time the contract ends even on "used" stuff. I also don't care what any sales men who comes on hear and says

To me all sales men are legal con artist I have learned this trough buying to many Garbage products at thease rental compaines and used cars.

I don't mean the sales men in department stores eaither at least you can see the product you are buying and make sure its the right one.

Also most rental companies don't like it when you threaten to take them to court, but they will not hesatate to tell you that they are going to court. I no how to reverse the tied when I talk to thease peoplo if they can't do a good price for me than I walk out the door.

First lets clear the air on the original issue at hand. The customer stated that he only owed $133.00 to pay-off this TV. As previously replied by another empoyee at RAC, this is probably the amount quoted as EPO, which is a service that RAC offers its customers to save them $$.

When a customer joins a rental agreement w/RAC they have 3 options- 90 day same as cash, EPO,& full term payoff. Now 90 day same as cash is pretty self explainitory, but epo can be confusing for some so heres how that works...

If a customer goes beyond thier 90 day SAC period but still wishes to save off the full term price then they can pay this item off at any time at 55% of the remaining amount of full term. This can be substantial savings to the customer, but if that option is still not feasible then they can continue to make thier weekly payments.

Since the original complaint did not state this I am to assume that the $133.00 amount to payoff is the EPO amount which means she did not have to pay that to keep her acct current. All she was required to do is to make her weekly renewal payment (which by the way would be between 29.99-39.99)and that would have taken her 7 of the 10 day time frame that she was requesting.

Although we would like all of our customers to pay on time each week we are reasonable people and know that this does not happen to everyone and 3 days to wait for a payment is a whole lot easier to work with than 10 days. Since rent to own is set up to assist customers who want quality merch without credit hassles, it has to be understood that 2 things factor into our credit program.

First 9/10 of our customers have credit problems this is why they cannot say go to Best Buy and finance thier purchases, and second we cannot operate like a normal bill collector since they operate generally on a 30 day frame. We operate on a 7 day (which is set up according to your pay schedule) So paying us 10 days late is the equivelent of say paying your car payment 1 1/2 months late.

The difference is they would repo your car with very high fees to return it to you. With us, you can have us pick it up and we can hold it for you and redeliver to you at no additional cost, just pay your past due amt if any and your reg weekly pmt. I hope this can clear the air as to why RAC operates the way we do.

I don't know how I missed TJ's last response as I monitor these reports daily. Must have skipped over it.

TJ, how bad is it that another employee of RAC calls you out on your post (thanks Lloyd)? You are correct that I am not a customer of RAC. I never have been, and never will be. But I do know people who have done the rent-to-own program, and they have always wound up paying 3 times the listed retail price if they went to term.

And even if that $2000 TV did only wind up costing $4000 after term, that's still a 100% mark-up on retail, which is already a grossly marked up price.

tj you are wrong on all accounts. The new lcd hitachi 50 inch are over 6 gran if you take them to term

Patrick unless you are an employee and know our price lists none of our hdtvs have a term price of $6000 our most pricey hdtv is either our hitachi lcd or our mitsubishi dlp and both of those term out to be around $4000 however the 90 sac value would be around $2000 so if you could just use 20% of your brain 100% of the time you should shut your mouth until you are an employee and know what you are talking about! nothing at rac is 133 a week!!!! most likely sheilas 133 was her epo (early purchace option) and she was at the end of her term. its also likely that sheila wasnt a great customer and throughout her term went 7+ days past due several times. it is also clearly stated in her rental agreement that she is to pay on or before her due date, and if at anytime she cannot pay the prompt return of the merchandise is requested until the customer can make a weeks payment or pay in full, at which time the merchandise will be redelivered. its called life time reinstatement! and thats all sheila has to tell her rac and she would have never been bothered. her problem is that she wanted to wait 10 days b4 paying and that is a huge no no at rac!

i used a rac store in fla to get an awesome 3000.00 home entertainment system!, even signed the contract to get it delivered for free! i never paid a dime in interest. i just paid them off in the first 30 days same as cash. if you have to have these luxuries, rac sells(rents) luxuries. youre going to pay through the nose! rent to own places know ppl with little money desire the nice furniture,big screen tvs,etc. they prey on the poor. id never buy these big ticket items on credit, just learn to save and budget your money!

Its very possible that this person paid $6000 for a big screen. With this agreement set due to be paid off in early 2005, it would be dating back to early 2002.

Looking back at the product offered then, RAC had just started its delve into the HD widescreen lines, meaning a premium price was charged, without a doubt. For instance, this person could have a 3 year old 60" HDTV by Philips. At $39.99 a week for 130 weeks, the total price of her agreement would have been $5198.70, not including waiver, club, or tax.

Now that RAC is offering LCD TVs, we'll see prices exceeding $6000 with ease (Rent One advertises their 50" LCD at $64.99/104, and they operate at a smaller turn than RAC.)

TJ,

Although I have never used the services of rental company such as RAC, I do know how they operate.

Let's find out how much that $2400 HDTV will really cost you if you do the rent to own program with RAC. I'm sure that if you went into RAC and plopped down $2400, you could get that TV, and that would be the end of it. It would be considered a regular retail transaction.

But what about rent to own? If I came into the store right now, and did this program, how much would I pay per week? How many weeks would I pay? I'm willing to bet that by the time it's all said and done, that TV will surely cost me over $6,000.

Let's look at Sheila's case. I'm making assumptions here, so bear with me. It's quite possible that she was paying $133 per week. Let's assume that she paid for one year (52 weeks). That works out to $6,916 total. Granted, this is based on assumption, but I'm sure that's pretty close to the actual amount.

Sheila, please give us the details of your payment terms for this TV. Misty and TJ are obviously clueless about the entire system.

One would think that after receiving over $6,000, RAC would be able to forgive the final $133. Or at least let you pay it 10 days later.

Lee i am an employee of rent a center and i know for a fact that there is not a tv RAC carries that is even worth $6000. The most expensive HDTV we carry is $2400 so when you want to start telling the truth and quit smearing the name of a great rent to own company!

Misty,

Before you go having diarhhea of the mouth and calling people liars better have all the facts.

Rent A Center's profits come from repossessing rental items that people can no longer pay on and then re-renting them to other people. the idea of them not working with someone is not that far fetched.

You need to tell the truth. If you can not pay because of job loss rent a center will lower your payment by half untill you are working for up to 6 months, or hold your product for you untill you have the funds. The employess are friendly and helpful. There is no way a tv can cost $6000.00unless it is the size of your whole house, and even if you were to charge it you would still pay interest on a credit card, nothing is free. I am a 3 year customer to rent a center and they are great!! They are wonderful about repairing your items if they don't work and even give you a loner in the meantime. You can't lie about a company because they won't give into your needs, oh yeah and you can't MAIL in payments to rent a center, it is only done in person, so this persons only problem is they are a pathelogical liar.