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Comment on Disability pensioner charged $6,760 for renting a phone that retails for around $1,800

Tankiedesantski@hexbear.net ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

Ultimately, I feel the solution should lie more in educating consumers on financial literacy.

You can crack down on predatory lending and educate consumers. However, you’ll never be able to educate the average consumer to be immune from sophisticated schemes simply because most people have other things to do on life and scammers devote a lot more time creating new scams than the average person can devote to learning about avoiding scams.

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wahming@monyet.cc ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
I’m not sure this qualifies as sophisticated - or even a scam, when everything is specified in plain text.

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- Tankiedesantski@hexbear.net ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
  Except obviously it is because nothing on that website alerts the buyer to the possibility of paying 4x the price of the good as the total cost of transaction. 33% to 38% interest pa is already egregious enough as it is but 4x the base cost of the good is absurd and usurus.
  
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  - wahming@monyet.cc ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    
    Sounds like you just have an ideological bias against consumer regulation
    
    I’m in favor of consumer protection laws on aspects like quality, safety, etc. Things that are more nebulous and harder or impossible to check. But at some point, I do believe consumers have a responsibility as well. I understand that convenience stores charge me more than groceries, and it’s fully on me if I shop there. In the same vein, if I buy a car that’s going for 50% above market value, I’m not about to scream fraud, provided all information on costs and fees were given to me.
    
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    BelieveRevolt@hexbear.net ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    You can look at this from another perspective, which is the benefit of allowing a scam like this to continue vs. regulating it out of existence. The only upsides of allowing this to continue is the company perpetuating it making money and a smug lemmitor getting to feel superior to the poors and disabled people, so it’s obvious that it shouldn’t be allowed to exist.
    
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    Tankiedesantski@hexbear.net ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago
    
    Things that are more nebulous and harder or impossible to check.
    
    Then please demonstrate how easy it is for the consumer to check their total payments by posting a screenshot from that website that alerts the consumer to the possibility of paying 4x the cost of the device as the total cost of transaction.
    
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