When the tires on their Dodge Caravan had worn so thin that the steel belts were showing through, Don and Florence Cherry couldn't afford to buy a new set.
So they decided to rent instead.
The Rich Square, N.C., couple last September agreed to pay Rent-N-Roll $54.60 a month for 18 months in exchange for four basic Hankook tires. Over the life of the deal, that works out to $982, almost triple what the radials would have cost at Wal-Mart.
"I know you have to pay a lot more this way," said Florence Cherry, a 57-year-old nurse who drives the 15-year-old van when her husband, a Vietnam veteran, isn't using it to get to his job as a prison guard. "But we didn't really have a choice."
Socked by soaring tire prices and short on funds, growing numbers of Americans are renting the rubber to keep their cars rolling.
Rent-to-own tire shops are among the newest arrivals to a sprawling alternative financial sector focused on the nation's economic underclass. Like payday lenders, pawn shops and Buy Here Pay Here used-car lots, tire rental businesses provide ready credit to consumers who can't get a loan anywhere else. But that access doesn't come cheap.
Customers pay huge premiums for their tires, sometimes four times above retail. Those who miss payments may find their car on cinder blocks, stripped of their tires by dealers who aggressively repossess. Tire rental contracts are so ironclad that even a bankruptcy filing can't make them go away.
And since busted tires mean no car and an immediate lost job in today's at-will employment America, it's getting loan-sharked for $1200 for a $300 set of tires or lose your job, your home, your car, and having to face Republican laws that all but criminalize being unemployed. These businesses are preying on the working poor, and the GOP is more than happy to take money from the "small business owners" who are providing jobs in the community. You know, for tire repo guys.
Legalized loan sharking where the GOP gets a cut? Working as intended.
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