"If You Can Afford Payments of $35 a Week for 12 Months ..."

"...you can afford a computer." That's what they just said on a TV ad.

Let's see ... 35 dollars a month ... 52 weeks a year ... that works out to $1,820.

I wonder how many people fall for that... :shrug:

These are targeted at people who literally live paycheck to paycheck. They see 1,000 dollars for a computer, or even 500 dollars, as just beyond their reach.

But 35/week? That's doable for a lot of them, if just barely.

They'll usually sign up for it when things are going well at work, and they're getting overtime. So they figure they can afford it.

Then, a couple of months later, things aren't going so well. Hours get cut back, the car breaks down, they miss a payment.

The company comes and takes the computer (likely to "sell" it again) and the collection agencies get into the party. And these poor folks end up paying a couple of thousand dollars for a couple months' rental of a crappy PC.

Just another way the poor get abused when they try to have something that the world tells them everyone has.

The same people that pay weekly on a car loan and end up paying 20-30% interest.