One shop not to shop at.

I overslept this morning, that sounds daft when I don't have anything pressing to get up for, except that today is my fortnightly visit to the Job Centre. Just made it with a minute to spare. I waited my turn, I heard my name being called but couldn't see where it was coming from. There have been that many new people registering for job seekers, that they have had to increase the amount of signing desks and train up staff to deal with the influx. I dutifully reported what jobs I have applied for. There was no point in trying to access the job vacancies computer points, all of them had a notice on saying out of action, probably run out of jobs, shut up shop, sorry no jobs.

I decided on a bit of research around the town centre. We have one of those shops where you can buy household items like furniture and electrical goods, and pay weekly, they seemed pretty busy. The banners said, 'Beat the Crunch, No Deposit, and No Credit Checks.' I studied what was on offer through the window. A pair of quality refurbished (it said so on the sign), two seater, brown leather sofas. A bargain price (?) for cash £654.12. If you want it on the never never, tick, or slate, whatever you like to call it, you can pay £13.58 per week for 55 weeks, giving a total of £746.90. Then it gets worse, if you want to include a service cover in that it would be £16,98 per week, making it £933.90. My god, is anyone daft enough to fall for that, it seems they are judging by the number of people who stepped inside and handed over their cash.

The main item in the window to pull in the punters, was a strategically placed 42inch refurbished Ambilight Philips TV, so placed to catch the eye of everyone passing. If you want to pay cash it is a snip at £792.06, I think not. You could elect to pay £8.77 over 120 weeks making it £1,052.40. If you want to include service charge cover and digi service cover that will be £13.49 per week, making it a total of £1618.80. What was horrifying was that there was no posh, well dressed, obviously affluent people crossing the threshold while I was standing there, they looked like they were families struggling to make ends meet.

These refurbished goods they are selling are possibly reposessed from people not able to keep up the payments. What annoys me is they way the shop advertises 29.9% interest, doesn't that sound a whole lot better than 30%, a devious trick. I wanted to stop everyone going in and say to them don't do it, you are signing your life away. Get a sofa out of the charity shop down the road, you don't need a tele that big, but I didn't want to get arrested. These shops are like piranha fish, they will strip you bare, they prey on peoples weaknesses, and vulnerabilities. They don't bring hopes and dreams to people, they bring misery. These are the shops that should be going out of business.