Klarinet Archive - Posting 000665.txt from 1998/09

From: pollyg@-----. Gulakowski)
Subj: Re: [kl] Buying Clarinets on Time
Date: Fri, 18 Sep 1998 22:52:29 -0400

P: This is absolutely true. The dealers must keep track of serial
numbers etc. to prove they haven't sold their rentals. A lot of these
rentals are very low end - you can get an Artley, but not a Bundy. (Also
many brands I've never heard of.) We have a local flea market dealer who
sells used and barely usable school instruments that he may have bought
in lots or picked out of the trash. My son got a nice playing trumpet
this way. I'm debating getting a flute but used flutes are horrendously
high in this area.

I just read the next message about losing credit toward the new
instrument. That doesn't happen. Rental fees paid for pool instruments
ARE applied to the new or used instruments in every store I'm aware of
locally.

Paulette

On Thu, 17 Sep 1998 17:48:29 -0400 "Karl Krelove" <kkrelove@-----.com>
writes:
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Kevin Fay (LCA) <kevinfay@-----.com>
>To: 'klarinet@-----.org>
>Date: Thursday, September 17, 1998 11:51 AM
>Subject: [kl] Buying Clarinets on Time
>
>
>>Rent to own is a great plan for a beginner who may or may not buy the
>>instrument. For artist level instruments--where the purchaser KNOWS
>that
>>they will buy and keep the horn--it's not so good from an economic
>>perspective. The typical plan calls for the buyer to pay the full
>retail
>>price, which if recast as street price + interest = a lot of
>interest.
>>Economically, you're not renting the horn, you're renting the store's
>money
>>to buy the horn--and the store will charge a much higher rate of
>interest
>>than a bank.
>>
>
>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.
>
>Karl Krelove
>
>
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