In my never ending quest to find examples of people selling you what you don’t need, I’ve come across Rent and Roll. In this case, if you don’t have the cash but need to get some nice “bling” for your car, you’re in luck. With Rent and Roll you can rent the nice shiny expensive wheels for your car with their “rent to own” program.
What I couldn’t find when I looked through their site was any sort of terms. They do say that they have some of the lowest lease rates in the business, but I think we all know that doesn’t mean too much.
I just wish that people would all wake up one day and realize that rent to own furniture, and especially completely non-essential items like new wheels for their car are a bad idea. In my humble opinion, the only person that really comes out ahead with the rent to own programs is the companies that offer these terms.
THE ONLY THING YOU SHOULD CONSIDER RENTING on an ongoing basis is housing! Yes, renting a tractor or other expensive item from a rental store for a day is a good idea. In fact, in that case it’s a great idea because you don’t have the ongoing costs of maintaining the item and still have the ability to use the right tool for the job. Renting anything else just isn’t a good idea. You don’t need furniture that bad. You don’t need a computer that bad, you don’t need a new TV that bad, and you certainly don’t need 22″ spinners (wheels) for your car that bad.
As I dug a little deeper on their website I found their “history“. The founder of RentNRoll is really a veteran of the rent to own industry (as opposed to a veteran of the tire business). What struck me as I read the history is that this business is really just another way to get people signed up in the rent to own cycle. The terms are so sweet for the companies that offer rent to own that they just have to identify a product that lower income people want and then apply their rent to own concept to it. I wouldn’t be surprised if other companies started popping up selling car accessories, or other non-essential items. It’s just another way to tap in to those people that can’t wait to have something (as opposed to waiting while they save up the money to pay cash).
I guess, in a sense, these companies are just removing the credit card from the equation. Instead of having the credit card companies pay them and then earn all that interest, they’ve figured out it’s better to get their customers to sign up for their terms which gives them all that interest instead.