Klarinet Archive - Posting 000635.txt from 1998/09

From: "Kevin Fay (LCA)" <kevinfay@-----.com>
Subj: RE: [kl] Buying Clarinets on Time
Date: Thu, 17 Sep 1998 22:41:34 -0400

Karl Krelove wrote:

<snip>

For what it's worth to anyone, rent-to-own programs have for several years
been illegal in Pennsylvania, precisely because of the interest equivalence.
A number of years ago Pennsylvania's attorney general went after a couple of
music stores over this and forced settlements that essentially ended
rent-to-own programs - I think he originally started out after furniture
stores, many of which sold their wares in a similar way. The music stores
must now keep a separate pool of rental instruments which are not offered
for sale. When the student decides to purchase an instrument (at any point
in the contract), he is sold a different instrument - usually a new one
unless he wants to apply his purchase credit toward a used instrument. In
any case, even the used instruments are not supposed to come from the same
pool of instruments as the rentals.

<endsnip>

For furniture, it truly was a method to bilk poor people out of their money.
People don't often want to take their couch back after a 3-month trial
period. Rent-to-own is a great way to get instruments into the hands of
kids, though, many/most of whom will play no more than a year. With the
two-pool method, the rental instruments can take a real beating--and the
parent loses a credit towards the purchase.

It certainly is not the most economical way to get a horn. For many,
however, its a good way to go--and one of the few services that the
mom-and-pop music store can perform and not get cut out by the catalog
houses. It's a shame that it has been outlawed in this context.

kjf

-------------------------------------------------------------------------