Renting electronics rebadged as “buy back,” media sucked in
If you’re over the age of 25 (or maybe 30) you might remember the golden age of electronics rentals. Companies use to rent items like TV’s and VCR’s for $X a week back when both items were insanely expensive. I can remember in the early 80’s my parents renting a 52cm (20″) teletext enabled television because they couldn’t afford to buy one. My brother and I got the old wood grained early 70’s unit in return which was great, but it’s only really in the last 25 years that mass produced consumer electronics have become highly affordable.
Renting electronics has fallen out of fashion as the affordability of that next TV or stereo system has dropped to levels many can afford, or where they can’t, cheap finance is available. The first TV/ VCR I bought was on a 12 month interest free finance deal, a 58cm (27″) CRT TV and VCR for $900 AUD (about $700 USD) in 1999. The last TV I bought for cash was a 106cm (42″) Plasma for my son and I paid $699 AUD ($500 USD) in 2008. But I digress, but the picture is relevant.
In 2009, renting in the age of cheap electronics is few and far between, but imagine if you could rebadge renting as a “buyback” scheme that allowed you to trade your electronics in after a set period of time.
Introducing TechForward Inc, as featured on Boston.com yesterday. For prices ranging from $19.99 to $249, depending on the electronic gadget, Techforward customers can opt into TechForward’s buyback program. According to the story:
If they sell a gadget back to the company within a six months, they will receive 50 percent of the purchase price back. The buyback scales down over two years from the date of purchase to 20 percent. TechForward sends postage-paid shipping materials to customers for when they’re ready to trade in their products. The company then tries to resell the products; if it can’t sell them, it recycles the products.
So that $3,000 TV you bough in January gets you $1,500 in July. Just to break that down, that’s $1500 for 6 months, or a loss of $250 a month. Here’s the catch: I’d bet that renting the same TV even today isn’t $250/ mth…hell, I could lease a $25,000 car for similar sort of money.
The difference here obviously is that you buy the item to begin with, but you then pass it off after a certain period of time so you can upgrade. But the devil is still in the cost: if you cash it in, you don’t own it at the end of the 6 months, and you lose half the value.
What I brilliant little “environmentally friendly” scam for people with more money than sense ?
