Rent-A-Center Won't accept a payment, wants to repossess my Stuff!!! Fayetteville North Carolina

aLook up the fcla laws notate how many they violated you will be suprised then contact the Attorney General then sue its the only way to stop theese crooks

sincerly ex, rac store manager

This will be in a rambling format, but you will get the point.

Just to start, NC does not have any formal laws on the books regarding the rent to own industry as of the date of this posting. Many of our industry leaders have spoken with many members of congress trying to get a movement going that will ultimately end in there being laws soley regarding the rent to own industry. If anybody wants to know more you can read all about it @ RTO online.

Something I found very interesting in regards to this particular posting was the late fee or reinstatement fee discussion. In NC we are allowed to charge a late fee on a periodic basis, meaning if the declared fee is $5 and you are paying your payment on a weekly basis and your payment is due on friday and the store closes at 7 friday night, at opening on saturday you owe $5 plus your payment, but....there is a another stipulation, the toatal of the fee can not exceed fair market value of wat is being renting, meening, than can chrge you continusely each friday untill the sum of your payments and the sum of the fees equal your total payoff, not a penny more.

On the same note, Renta a center in particular has a cute operational program called high touch, which would be the equivalent to windows on your home pc, its the program they use to keep track of your personal info and build there agreements upon. One of the nice little features of this program is the f8 payment screen. It shows basic info like your name and your account #, how much your weekly payment is and the exact tax and any fees owed. The fun part is that it straight calcultes tax left to right.

Guess what comes on the left before the weekly rental rate?? the late fee!

This prompts the computer to tax the fee and then tax the payment, taxing a late fee in NC is highly illegal, in legal ease it would be called double dipping, the question many of us have had for years is whether or not they report these taxes??

Anyway, enough ranting    next time maybe i will explain the turn program and how it effects the totall that the rent to own industry charges lol  

ps love the new spokes people

Legaleagle, true, it would make the merch "up" for reposession, however, this isn't a car sitting outside, and if you don't let them in your house,they don't get it. Most people assume that RAC has the upper hand and just get walked on, but in reality, if you let it get charged off (60 days of non-payment), nothing happens. It is a numbers game, they look at cash value of the merch, deduct what the customer has paid, and in most cases, it never gets pursued.If you have only paid 1/4 of the value, then they will take it to civil court, but, if youre like me, child support, alimony and insurance already has your deductions maxed out, so they'll never get a garnishment.
As far as the original poster, I agree 100%. I've given them a ton of money for half assed appliances and furniture through the years, and they have always treated me horribly.

Legaleagle, true, it would make the merch "up" for reposession, however, this isn't a car sitting outside, and if you don't let them in your house,they don't get it. Most people assume that RAC has the upper hand and just get walked on, but in reality, if you let it get charged off (60 days of non-payment), nothing happens. It is a numbers game, they look at cash value of the merch, deduct what the customer has paid, and in most cases, it never gets pursued.If you have only paid 1/4 of the value, then they will take it to civil court, but, if youre like me, child support, alimony and insurance already has your deductions maxed out, so they'll never get a garnishment.
As far as the original poster, I agree 100%. I've given them a ton of money for half assed appliances and furniture through the years, and they have always treated me horribly.

Legaleagle, true, it would make the merch "up" for reposession, however, this isn't a car sitting outside, and if you don't let them in your house,they don't get it. Most people assume that RAC has the upper hand and just get walked on, but in reality, if you let it get charged off (60 days of non-payment), nothing happens. It is a numbers game, they look at cash value of the merch, deduct what the customer has paid, and in most cases, it never gets pursued.If you have only paid 1/4 of the value, then they will take it to civil court, but, if youre like me, child support, alimony and insurance already has your deductions maxed out, so they'll never get a garnishment.
As far as the original poster, I agree 100%. I've given them a ton of money for half assed appliances and furniture through the years, and they have always treated me horribly.

Legaleagle, true, it would make the merch "up" for reposession, however, this isn't a car sitting outside, and if you don't let them in your house,they don't get it. Most people assume that RAC has the upper hand and just get walked on, but in reality, if you let it get charged off (60 days of non-payment), nothing happens. It is a numbers game, they look at cash value of the merch, deduct what the customer has paid, and in most cases, it never gets pursued.If you have only paid 1/4 of the value, then they will take it to civil court, but, if youre like me, child support, alimony and insurance already has your deductions maxed out, so they'll never get a garnishment.
As far as the original poster, I agree 100%. I've given them a ton of money for half assed appliances and furniture through the years, and they have always treated me horribly.

When making payment on leased property, it is not like the electric bill or any other bills. It is a rental toward ownership.

What would happen if you paid your landlord 6 days late, 12 days late, etc... Eventually they will refer back to the lease or contract and evict you. The same rules apply to rented property. Failure to make timely payment after repeated warning from the staff and management simply results in the same result.

Until is is paid off, it is the property of the company and not the consumer and poor payment history will simply result in repossesssion.

Xracman,

No, I am NOT wrong. But there's a chance that you may be correct as well. Keep in mind that Rent to own laws are different from state to state. There may be a grace period in some oher states, and I do not know all of the laws between the 50 different states. However, I do know what is the requirment in North Carolina. I currently work in NC, plus the original person on this posting is also from NC.

Hey D from N.Carolina you are right about no late fees but reinstatement fees but you are wrong about going 1 day late and the agreement is expired. When paying weekly your reinstatement fee doesn't go into affect until the second day. By paying monthly you have a 5 day grace period and there is nothing Rent A Center can do about that.

To clearify, going a day late is when your account comes due on the first and you don't pay until the second you have no reinstatement fee. Monthly customers have until the fifth to pay without a reinstatement fee.

Seems to me they got tired of your late payments - period.

After a history of you making late payments, they wanted you to catch up and show good faith by paying the bill due the next day. Doesn't seem unreasonable to me.

I have rental properties and mortgages to pay. I can (and have) forgiven an OCCASIONAL late rent payment without charging late fees. However, I do not tolerate HABITUAL late payments. I have to pay the mortgages on time or suffer late fees and possible "late" marks on my business credit report, so I have to take some sort of action to break the late payers habit.

Also, it's not "my stuff" until you pay for it!

I don't like RAC's tactics, but the reality is if you paid on time most of the time they wouldn't treat you like this.

If you were a tenant of mine and you are HABITUALLY late, I would start eviction proceedings to be rid of you. There are too many folks, regardless of economic status, who pay their bills ON TIME for me to put up with a habitually late rent payer.

Looking over your story, I can add some info on to why that store may have required the two weeks payment at one time.

1st off, the $5 + tax extra is NOT a late fee. It is a reinstatement fee. Once your agreement goes 1 day past due, your rental agreement is expired and your merchandise is eligible for pickup.

When you are 5-7 days past due, most stores will not allow just the past due amount. The game on rent to own is that payments MUST be kept paid ahead. Just like renting an apartment, you are required to pay the next upcoming month in advance. RAC is the same thing, your payments may just be paid either weekly, bi-weekly, or in some cases monthly. Because you were a week behind, it sounds like the manager was requiring you to pay the past due amount and the next week amount. This is a requirement from RAC, so the manager was not lying to you about policy.

RAC does not tolerate late payments. It may be up to the company if they decide to work with you or not, but once an agreement goes one day late, it's an expired agreement and it's up to RAC if they choose to accept another payment, or to have the merchandise picked up.

Rent to own is very different, it's not a credit application so there is no cushion on when a payment is due. It's due no later then the due date.

To start off with, how many past due renewal payments did you have in your pay history? I've been a customer with RAC for over 10 years and have never had any problems with them. They allways make time for me and help me with anything I need.

I do know that from being in the store and listening to the employees it is very frustraiting to see that the option is their for the customer to return the merch. and come back later to pick up where they left off but people insist on keeping something that is beyond their means, what I don't understand is how you can say that they didn't want to take your payment for one week even though your next payment was due the next day?

Was it more than likely due to you not honering the renewal the next day and they just said enough is enough.

All I know is that I've returned things because I couldn't pay for a while and later returned to pick back up and I always pick up where I left off with no problem.

Sure RAC has stricter policies on the rental agreements than conventional credit such as the renewal of the rental agreement has to be made on time, but if you think about it, with this company you have flexable pay plans, service is included, loaners are available for you when your product has to go to be seviced and you can return the merchandice if you fall into hard times then come back and pick up where you left off. What credit company do you know of that dose all that for its customers?

My loyalty lies with rent a center they have taken good care of me.

A happy customer.

You ask yourself, is the amount I have left to pay on the TV more than it's worth? If it is, you should just return the TV and be done with them. It was of course a bad deal to start with them, but if the remaining amount is more than it's worth, it is still a bad deal to continue.

The amount that you have already paid is NOT A FACTOR in this decision. A lot of people can't get over that. That money is gone regardless; you can't change the past. You should decide from the options you have now, what will be best for the future.

They may have the right to demand payments that aren't due yet after you've been late with a payment. This is called an "acceleration clause" in a contract. But in other regards they are clearly in the wrong. If the store manager has agreed to a payment arrangement, and you are in compliance with that arrangement, they can't repo.

Even if they did have cause to repo, the repo man has to go away when you tell him to, unless he has a court order. Call the police on him. If he did have a court order, the police will already be there.

Browsing through some of the other posts on this site has been a little scary. First of all, my post only entails the situation that I'm having with RAC right now. As I stated originally, I have been renting from them for over a year now, and this is certainly not the first issue I've experienced.

I think that since this company obviously has a policy of harrassment and abuse, it is high time that we the people stand up against them.

It is funny to see the RAC employees comments on this sight, ranging from 'you signed the contract, and you are a lowlife with poor credit and no money' to 'you should just buy things cash'.

Yeah, I might have signed a contract to pay my bill on a specific day, but did I sign a contract saying that you have my permission to call me on saturday morning at 8:00 am? Did I sign a contract saying that you have my permission to bang on my door so hard that pictures fall off the walls. Did I sign a contract saying that If I'm going to be late on a payment and make an arrangement / commitment, that you are allowed to come to my house THE DAY BEFORE the agreed upon date, and beat on my doors/windows for a half hour? Did I sign a contract saying that if I have a past due amount, I'm not allowed to pay it until I pay for THE NEXT WEEK THAT ISN'T EVEN DUE YET?

NO I did not. I think that this company is a sick joke preying on those of us who are not fortunate enough to be able to pay every bill on time. Does it make me a bad person? No. Have I stayed current with RAC for the last year? Yes. Do I have the right to pursue financial compensation for horassment? Yes. And I will. I hope that more people will band together against this multi million dollar company of money grubbing, condescending people.

Oh and by the way, I have also read several comments from Ex-RAC employees that stated it is company policy to harrass their customers. How can they possibly get away with this, this day in age?