"Alone, even doing nothing, you do not waste your time. You do, almost always, in company. No encounter with yourself can be altogether sterile: Something necessarily emerges, even if only the hope of some day meeting yourself again." (E.M. Cioran)

Tuesday, November 14, 2006

It's a Mercenary World


I knew things were getting nastier, but I wasn't prepared for this little media piece. Apparently, a very old lady living alone in the Sydney 'burbs has been regularly - and trustingly - handing over the $30 monthly payments, as a matter of routine, for a broken-down TV she has rented for 22 years.

Now she is receiving threatening 'repossession' letters from the rental company, after ceasing to make the payments she is no longer able to make, due largely to the fact that she has been diagnosed with multiple myeloma.

$30 per month - for 22 years - for an old TV that does't even work - meaning she's paid around $8000 to date. Wouldn't she well and truly own it by now? Makes me wonder how many more people are being exploited in this way. The company, unsurprisingly, says they've done nothing wrong, according to the original contract. How fucked up is this?

Oh well, that's capitalism for ya!

1 comment:

blackwell said...

I think this sucks big time and I hope the capitalist jerks that own the television rental company burn in hell for all eternity. It concerns me that they are pursuing a case like this. Surely greedily extracting $8000 from an elderly woman is enough for them to go on.