Most of us find ourselves in situations where our credit becomes less than perfect. Whether it be from a divorce, poor usage of credit in our youth, or maybe even the inability to establish due to cash paying jobs. Regardless of the situation, many of us have opted to use a rent to own contractor in order to obtain items that we may need for our homes.
Rent-A-Center, one of the market’s leaders in this industry takes advantage of those in the above mentioned situations. I personally have found myself among those individuals, and would like to share my personal experiences with Rent-A-Center in the hopes that I can save someone the headache of making the same mistakes.
I began my contract with Rent-a-Center a little over a year ago. I am a single mother, and admittedly abused my credit to the point that my score dropped from the high 600’s to the mid 500’s in the course of the past 9 years. Granted, they are not to blame for that as it was my own wrong doing that resulted in such events having taken place. However, being a paying customer I would have expected them to have upheld their end of the contract in a more respectful manner.
I had originally ordered a bedroom set for my home in February 2006, and was told that they would have the items delivered in two weeks. The time and date were set by the store manager, and I proceeded to make arrangements to accomodate the arrival. Upon the arrival of the bedroom set, several of the pieces became damaged in transit. This fiasco landed me without the dressers that were to be included in the set as they were now defective. Ok, things happen…the store manager was contacted by the associate responsible for my order’s delivery and a new set was ordered. My account was credited and I was to make payments on only the bed untill I recieved the replacement dressers. Cool. I was being compensated and the situation was resolved for the time being. Little did I know that this was just the beginning of what would evolve into a nightmarish contractual obligation.
The new dressers arrived approximately 2 months after the fact, though this time they arrived safely. Not too long after their arrival, (say a month and a half later) the laminate on the dressers began to chip, and several of the drawers did not fit right. I decided to contact the store manager and make him aware of the situation as to prevent my being held accountable for the chipping, and to see what if anything could be done. I was told that they would send an order out to have the drawers replaced, and that the chipping was nothing to fret over as it was normal with usage. This was late May.
I continued paying my monthly payment, and in August asked about the replacement drawers that were said to have been ordered in May. They were still on order I was informed. At this point I began to just assume that they would contact me upon their recieving the drawers. Silly me.
In January, my boyfriend went in with me to make my payment and proceeded to request information from the store manager pertaing to the illusive replacement drawers. The store manager ( mind you the one I am dealing with now is a replacement himself) looked stunned and stated he knew nothing of the situation. Eight months had passed and no one knew anything?! In fact, their was nothing in my file except for a request to not call me before noon as I usually work untill 2am. I then proceeded to inform the store manager of the horrible experience that I was having in this contract…even informing him of how his associates had even ignored the bold as day no calls before noon request on the top of my file. Calls at work on the days payments were due,( though I had at that point made all on time) defective merchandise which inconvenienced me the consumer, and now this. The store manager claimed he wanted to make things “right” and insisted that we schedule a time in which a technician could come out and look at the drawers. I agree, and a date is set. I had to take the time off of work in order to accomodate them, as the first appointment I cancelled due to a work conflict. ( I gave them more than 24 hour notice mind you) The appointment’s time line had came and went, and they had neither called nor showed. I decided that as it was past their typical store hours at this point I would call and speak with the manager in the morning. Much to my surprise at about 7pm, I recieve a knock at my door. Two hours after an appointment which had been slated to be between 3-5 pm. Sure enough it was Rent-A-Center. My first instinct was to slam the door in the tech’s face and tell him where to go. I settled with explaining that I had had to take the day off of work and to tell his boss some nice little expletives.
It has been over a month no apology for their tardiness, nor my inconvenience due to such, no explanation as to when to expect the replacement drawers, nothing. So I have resolved that being as how they have decided to treat me, a paying customer with such disregard, I contacted the BBB. My email regarding my unsatisfactory experience has been directed to their corporate headquarters. I hope to hear back from them and that they are willing to do right by the consumer.
