I have been in correspondance with the complaint. This is in concern with YOUR company, Financing Alternatives. What are you thinking to let this happen to your customers. Let me ask you a personal question. Why do you mark up the prices of computers? Why is it that, a 500 to 600 dollar computer is costing customers over triple the amount in some cases?
You don't even offer quality products to back it up. The "free" digital camera you offer with the computer order is only a 2.0 Megapixel camera. Anyone can find one of those for 50 bucks. A good quality one is at least 3.0 Megapixel or 4.0 Megapixel. From what I can see on the commercial; and what customers have told me, the printer is generic (easily found for less than 60 bucks). But what gets me, is that your company takes money out of peoples accounts before they sign a legal document. Why lock them into something when the customer first calls up? Recording them to make sure its ok they are billed? THen taking a long time to send contracts out, so they are already locked in.
The terms in the contract are atrocious. Another plus, "you agree not to participate in a class action lawsuit against Financing Alternatives, and any participation in a class action against your company will result in you seeking legal recourse for any legal fees" as a result of that class action suit and all its participants will be sued for their participation. Is this your way of saving your ass?
By knowingly marking up the price of the computer to atrocious terms? And stalling customers for delivery of their computers if they make payments for 3 months? No wonder you came up with this clause in the contract. Because, you Mr (christian and knows how hard it is to have bad credit) knows that bad credit people are desperate, dumb, and uneducated. Your wrong, a lot of them are seeing this whole scam. That clause in the contract is a good way to save your ass. Very creative. But I guarantee you this much, there is a large amount of talk on the net, and local radio stations about your companys actions as of late.
I don't have bad credit, and would never pay over 2200 dollars for a laptop! I saved the money in a matter of 4 months and got a much higher quality laptop for 4/5 (About 400 dollars I saved) the price of the one you were offering! This is a notebook PC by Toshiba, (Toshiba Satellite P25) it has 1 GB of RAM (I upgraded from 512 to 1 GB for less than 100 dollars), wireless internet integrated into the laptop, a 64 MB NVIDIA GeForce graphics card, 17" Widescreen display, 80 GB hard drive, Windows XP Pro, MS Office XP Pro, and best of the best, a 3.2 GHZ Intel Pentium 4 chip with HT Technology and a DVD Burner/CDRW Burner drive.
So, for less than what your company charges ($2200) for a cheap knock off of the Dell Inspiron (about 700 for the laptop printer digital camera you offer should come out to about $950 shipping included and excluding tax *to be figured by State it is sold in) I ended up spending $1500 on a laptop which easily doubles or even triples the quality, memory, and storage of the one your selling. I am sure the laptop you offer (256 MB RAM, 2.4 GHZ celeron *did very poorly in WinBenchmark tests compared to competing CPU chipsets* 30 GB HD, 10/100 ethernet card, CDRW drive *no DVD? *, and stale design might be worth 2200 dollars to someone who is misled by your company that they have no where else to turn.in actuality, if someone were to put the money into an envelope every payday (lets say 35 dollars a week for what you charge for your "quality brand name personal computer") or 140 dollars a month into an envelope, that person could buy a computer in less than 6 months and be done with it! Where as, they could go with your company, and help make you rich.
They could easily pay double the price of what they could get it through at dell directly or even walmart! And no financing involved because they have the cold hard cash to buy the computer outright. It beats having to pay you double or more for the cost of the computer, and have the payments coming out for easily a year or more! Doesn't that make sense. Oh and I have talked to 16 people in my town about your company. They had planned on going to your company to finance a computer because they saw the commercial. I referred them to http://usacomplaints.com (type Financing Alternatives) in the search area. And dozens of reports come up about YOUR company. I have detered 16 people, and helped them make the right decisions. Several bought the computers outright at different retailers who offer much much lower prices and extended service plans. A few are doing what I told them, to stuff an envelope with money every week and when they have enough money to buy the computer they want, they got the cold hard cash.
Now, for fun I told them to label the envelope Financing Alternatives just to get a laugh. Technically the money should be yours right? But they can take that money out of the Financing Alternatives envelope and know its theirs, and they can buy whatever they want with that money. Thats a win win situation if you ask me. Also, your selection of computers is VERY POOR. 2 desktop systems, and 1 laptop system is all you have to offer? Good luck with that selection. And that 600 dollars worth of free software, almost all the people I talked to said they wouldnt even use that software because they can find online resources to supplement the road atlas, and the encyclopedia.
Plus, much of that software I will bet, is calculated at the retail when it first came out. I saw several of those software titles (about 7 titles) in the 'bargain section' of Comp USA. Bargain section meaning they were 4.99 or less!!! So yes, your trying to run a legitimate business, but no, your swindling a lot of money out of people, especially those who are desperate, not aware of other options available, and trying to mislead them with thinking they are receiving a state of the art digital camera and printer, when in fact, they are the least technically advanced on the market.
Oh and I like the fact you air on BET, why don't you have the balls to advertise on CNN or CBS? Where millions of viewers will be able to see your commercials? And maybe you might snag 1 percent of that viewership. According the Nielson ratings, CBS pulls in 14 to 20 million viewers in primetime (evenings). Thats 140 thousand to 200,000 people you could get as customers! Cmon mr christian george sr... think!!! Or are you afraid thats 200 thousand people who will be 'educated and smart' and who will see it as a scam and expose your company? HAH!
Most low income people who are jobless or work dead-end night shifts watch TV during the day, and they are BLACK or hispanic, so therefor, you target the minority who seem to be dead in the water, and desperate. Plus you think they won't put up a fight if you take their money and mislead them. THey might not even know what a quality computer system is! HAHAHA, personally I think you need a life. I am white and proud. I am educated and proud. I have good credit and I am proud. I have a bachelors degree in Business Management and I am proud!
If you would even advertise the real prices of the computers *not the weekly payment you would not get many if any customers. I have filed a complaint with my State Attorney General and the Federal Trade Commision. I have forwarded a copy of your contract to both agencies. I wish you luck in the business venure. You will need it. Good day.
0 comments