Home Buy rip off

euanT

My daughter has just informed me that her friend has been paying a fortune to HOME BUY for a television.
She obviously has credit issues and signed up last year to get a tv for her new home. She got a 32" TV & stand for a ludicrous £52 a month over 3 years. She has paid £1530 to date with apparently £445 still to pay. I nearly died when I heard this, I thought Britehouse was bad exploiting young and vulnerable people.
My question is can she just walk away from this Deal!! or is she stuck with it

anyone any thoughts

balmk

Stuck with it I'm afraid unless her contract has an early termination clause.

And to think, your daughters friend could have just saved £52 a month for 6 months and bought a decent mid-range TV outright.

shaun_from_Africa

Without knowing the terms and conditions of the purchase, it would be difficult for anyone on here to give any reliable advice athough if it was a 3 year contract, I would be amazed if your daughters friend could just walk away without any penalty.

I totally agree with you on the prices though. I've just had a look at their website. and the first TV on there is a Sanyo C32FH08-B
priced at £729 for cash or £7.44 per week for 156 weeks. (total payable is £1161.

The same TV is available from Amazon for £358.

euanT

balmk wrote: »

Stuck with it I'm afraid unless her contract has an early termination clause.

And to think, your daughters friend could have just saved £52 a month for 6 months and bought a decent mid-range TV outright.

Young single mother not very street wise I'm afraid, I was hoping she could get out of contract after paying so much back, as you say for a £250 telly

TadleyBaggie

This mob I suspect http://www.homebuygroup.com/

You can't even get into the site without giving them alot of information.

shaun_from_Africa

There's a better link for their site here:
http://www.homebuygroup.com/Home.aspx

You can view their catalogue and price list from this site.

deanos

Cant you just walkaway and hand back the TV like you can with a car after so long ?

edgex

euanT wrote: »

Young single mother not very street wise I'm afraid, I was hoping she could get out of contract after paying so much back, as you say for a £250 telly

she cant use a calculator?!
she couldnt look in an argos catalogue, or walk past an electrical retailer & see what the average price of a tv is?

presumably she 'needs' a tv?
& she's paying her tv licence?

arcon5

euanT wrote: »

Young single mother not very street wise I'm afraid, I was hoping she could get out of contract after paying so much back, as you say for a £250 telly

Wouldn't this make a complete mockery of contract law? If a person could agree to a purchase at a certain price then just stop half way through because shes 'paid so much back'.

She was clearly happy with the price when she took the agreement out. In fact she hasn't even expressed dissatisfaction at this stage, just you that has.

deanos wrote: »

Cant you just walkaway and hand back the TV like you can with a car after so long ?

The difference is the TV transaction is likely to be a credit agreement and title has already passed whereas a car on hire purchase legally belongs to the lender.

Flyboy152

arcon5 wrote: »

Wouldn't this make a complete mockery of contract law? If a person could agree to a purchase at a certain price then just stop half way through because shes 'paid so much back'.

She was clearly happy with the price when she took the agreement out. In fact she hasn't even expressed dissatisfaction at this stage, just you that has.



The difference is the TV transaction is likely to be a credit agreement and title has already passed whereas a car on hire purchase legally belongs to the lender.

If the credit agreement is attached to the goods, from what I understand, the same rules apply.

However, surely there is a line to be drawn between what is or isn't "moral," when a naive youngster is trapped into a long term credit arrangement paying large amounts of interest, especially when they are given very limited choices. The rate on this debt, based on an initial credit balance of £300 is 577% APR. Which side are the morals there?

bod1467

Unfortunately such companies trade in this grey area of morality/legality. What they're doing is utterly immoral but ultimately legal.