to be hacked off that the Brighthouse vultures are opening a shop in our town?

[Meglet]

I know they charge extortionate interest rates so had a Google and am disheartened that they can take advantage of people like they do.

The problem is definitely that goods are now too cheap and the environmental impact of throwing so much away is a huge problem

"You could replace the cathode tube on older tv's but you can't fix the modern ones at all"

You can replace the panel in an LCD TV, just as you could replace the tube on older ones. Indeed, I replaced the panel in my laptop with one bought on ebay quite recently: just an hour's work and some very tiny screws and a couple of connectors. The question is whether it's economic to do so.

"Although we do only have second hand tellies from freecycle, so I dont feel bad about being wasteful."

Which almost certainly have a way higher power consumption, so it depends on which variety of waste you're concerned with, embodied carbon versus power.

"The problem is definitely that goods are now too cheap"

If bread is too expensive, let them eat brioche.

Yes, labour costs in the UK are far higher - but the earlier post about people not wanting to repair things is inaccurate. There is often no incentive to repair when you can buy new for less - which as Laurie says has an enormous environmental impact.

"Yes, labour costs in the UK are far higher - but the earlier post about people not wanting to repair things is inaccurate. There is often no incentive to repair when you can buy new for less - which as Laurie says has an enormous environmental impact."

There's no incentive to repair when it costs more than buying new. The argument about environmental impact is about externalities, which aren't factored in properly to the life-cycle of consumer durables. Had the WEE directive been properly enforced it would have made a difference, but it was watered down; that would have forced manufacturers to pay for disposal. So long as there's cheap slave labour, low cost bulk transport and a population that is happy with bread and circuses, it'll continue. Feel free to propose a solution that is even vaguely electorally plausible, and I'm sure Caroline Lucas would be glad to hear it.

That Bright House is also having a big opening day with face painting and activities for kids I noticed :(

I have no idea what the answer is

And I'm a hypocrite too as I bought a cheap Sony camera on Friday from John Lewis

Bright house and all the others that prey on those who are vulnerable are shameful. I'd be standing outside the shop with giant posters warning people of the dangers moomaa.
My mother rented a washing machine, £12 a month for years, in the end we all clubbed together and brought her a new one, she'd have paid for several washing machines by now. Washing machines are not expensive, a new one can be picked up for a couple of hundred pounds, a few pounds a week saved in a tin and the money can be saved. I know it's hard though, I grew up with nothing, parents scrimping and saving all the time. People on low incomes can get a low cost loan from the benefits agency to pay for household items, BH must 'sell' alot of items that are considered to be a luxury (X Box/flat screen TV etc), it's feeding the 'get it now' culture that the UK has developed, it's shocking that they are allowed to do this but it's down to people to be responsible for themselves.

It might be better if people treated it like 'renting' instead of 'owning' like you used to do with tv rentals.

So if it stops working you stop paying or if you can't afford it you can return it.

If they can't chase you as they don't have a legally enforceable credit agreement then really its changing the mindset.

I used to rent a washing machine when I was a student at £4 a week (it was a while ago) and the shop man used to come and take it back just before the summer break - and I didn't have to pay over the summer.

Oh yeah, Provident loans.
My father used to take these out all the time, every time he'd almost paid one off she'd offer him more money, I remember the same woman coming round when I was a child, I was 30 when he died and he was still paying her Quick money is really attractive, especially when you only have income from benefits. By the time he'd paid her there was usually not alot left, she'd then turn up and offer him £200 for a few pounds a week and he'd jump at it, it's a very vicious cycle. He'd pay her, buy the food (cans of cheap crap), pay the bills then have nothing left. When you have children to clothe/christmas then you do resort to people like this, they are vultures. Thank god there's credit unions now, I can't understand why people still use provident.

£4 a week to rent is the average I think, it would cost more to use a laundrette.

Given the potential knowledgebase of MN, with relations or acquaintances who may have used Brighthouse in the past, it might be worth contacting some consumer show (like You and Yours, Radio 4) asking whether these stores are spreading rapidly during the current financial situation, and questioning whether people know how much extra things will cost, etc.

I think it was around 20 months ago (one November / December) on Radio 4's PM that there was criticism of Argos for joining up with some 'credit' firm which did door-to-door collections. It was typical for APR to be 100% (customer could borrow Z pounds with this firm's card used for payment, and would then pay back 2x Z over ~52 weeks. Clearly it was a higher APR than Brighthouse takes, but on smaller sum of cash, so BH presumably making a lot more cash, even after taking account of failure to pay.

I will try to find the name of the firm (though Argos was given hardest time, linking up with them... credit firm tried to justify their charges as they went door-to-door so had lots of staff to pay around the country).

It was called the Easy Shop card (link to BBC News article]] - the card was provided by Provident Financial.

It would be provident.

reminds me of that old expression 'getting it on the never never'

we've always had this system- just that it was catalogues in the past, not actual shops?

Is it right that charities like NSPCC associate themselves with BH?

"NSPCC head of corporate partnerships Tracy Griffin said ?I?m delighted that Brighthouse has chosen to support the NSPCC, and our ChildLine service in Scotland."

Back in 1996, when BrightHouse were called Crazy George's (see Subsidiaries section), they tried to open a store in France. The French Government put a stop to it after 2 days of trading. Independent: Georges Easy Credit Drives French Government Crazy

Radio Rentals was at one point owned by Thorn Electrical Industries Limited. The Thorn pension scheme (Terra Firma) sold BrightHouse to VisionCapital in 2007.

If anyone is interested in the BrightHouse Annual Report 2009 - this is the link.

So you could say that BrightHouse is what our parents used to use when they used Radio Rentals. Not quite the same but certainly similar.

The NSPCC should be ashamed!

The rest of Europe doesn't allow companies like this, their interest rates are all regulated, it's just the UK that doesn't give a shit so they all operate here (cash till pay day/quickquid etc). I voluntered at the CAB a few years ago, catalogues are legally unenforcable as nothing is legally signed.

The annual report says 29.9% APR which while being high is probably reasonable given the lack of a credit check. However, is 29.9% APR the actual lending rate... or are things like 'optional' insurance being added. The annual report says that Insurance is regulated by Malta FSA. Why did Caversham Finance set up a company in Malta?

Looking at the Consumer Action Group website it appears this insurance is Damage Liability Cover and that like a lot of insurance the customer is liable for the first £x of each claim.

Is that sort of insurance really optional? Or are the weekly repayment amounts really a combination of finance plus insurance?

Malta probably has different tax laws.

I used to have a friend that works there, (at BH), the total cost is a combination of insurance, it's supposto be optional but they don't explain this to customers.

The insurance also looks high. I just did a comparison and found that single appliance insurance on a washing machine could be got for under £50 a year. BH charge £3.50 a week on the washing machine I was comparing. The costs are outlined clearly on the BH website and it says that insurance is required and that BH can sell that insurance so they are not covering it up.

£50 a year may not sound that bad... so why don't BH customers get insurance elsewhere? Thing is I expect most insurers would require the insurance to be paid upfront. If they did permit financing that insurance, then it could well be similar to what BH charge. Far more convenient for customers to get everything from the same company (though it's not the same company if they read the small print).

Yes, expect you are right... the tax laws would be different. I wonder how it affects consumer rights?

Hmm, I'll do some research on that tomorrow.

The thing with guarantees for electrical items is that people don't need them. They should automatically be guaranteed, they have a 'shelf life' and legally they should last a minumum period, 10 years for a washing machine for example (assuming normal usage). It would be pointless if someone paid £400 for a washing machine that only lasted 1 year.

The costs are on the site, they are not always clearly explained to customers in the shop though. It's a very dodgy practice, Panorama/some other type programme did a TV programme about BH last year.

"catalogues are legally unenforcable as nothing is legally signed."

I believe that is the case with any loan taken out where you didn't sign the documentation on the companies premisses.
I am looking into that at the moment but if it's correct people will be able to tear up credit agreements and start claiming back thousands of pounds in credit card, loans, overdrafts which should never have been paid.

IIRC, there's different regulations for things that are signed in different places. It's a mine field, the citizens advice have been trying to get things like this sorted out for years.

"earlier post about people not wanting to repair things is inaccurate. There is often no incentive to repair when you can buy new for less"

... but that's not exactly 'new'. We had a rented TV set when I was young (and some of you might be old enough to remember the old phones, which had to be rented from BT until the late 80s/early 90s). I remember we had a colour set from about '73, and the chap running the TV and radio shop up the street allowed us to rent it at the same cost as the B+W we had been using (it was a big beast and needed 2 people to carry it). Anyway, he then sold his business to the local Radio Rentals shop on the High Street, so we were locked in with a low cost.

A couple of years later was when I went off to college and two more years before I quit college. At that time, the qualifications (City and Guilds) which I had picked up were only really suitable for me to work in the back, doing TV repairs, but that was around the start of them moving to replacement circuit boards, and repairing old boards was awkward, and then soon became even harder as more integration meant fewer and fewer chances to replace components - everything went to ICs and there were fewer and fewer, but more costly, circuit boards. (I went into IT, fortunately, and worked my way up.)

Thanks for the investigative work Nick (post 15-Aug-10 21:05).

Later... "29.9% APR which while being high is probably reasonable given the lack of a credit check."

I expect there are some store cards and maybe even some bank credit cards charging similar rates (so how can they justify similar rates, given they do make credit checks)...