[0:00] - I, that is the dumbest thing
I've ever done for a video.
[0:03] Sometimes when I'm doing
these investigations,
[0:05] I'll start off by cracking jokes
[0:07] about how I'm about to get
scammed, but not this time.
[0:10] I gave this company
[0:12] all of my personal
information for this video,
[0:14] address, social security
number, bank account number.
[0:17] You name it, all to answer
[0:19] a single seemingly simple question.
[0:23] Today, we have a big one.
[0:24] Now these guys have
been around for decades
[0:26] and the promise sounds great.
[0:28] Get your hands on tech, furniture
for a small weekly price,
[0:33] return it whatever you want,
or buy and actually own it.
[0:36] But this is a company
who offer a PlayStation 5
[0:39] with a thousand plus dollar cash price.
[0:42] And if you can rent it
[0:43] all the way through the end of the term,
[0:45] you can spend over
$2,000 on a standard PS5,
[0:49] which really leads me
with the question of,
[0:52] is Rent-A-Center a scam?
[0:54] Okay, so that did not go as planned.
[0:57] We walked in and they
have no PlayStations.
[1:01] They have TVs and a whole lot
of furniture and that is it.
[1:04] But as we started to look
at them for this video,
[1:06] Rent-A-Center is so much bigger
[1:08] and so much more sophisticated
than just selling you TVs
[1:13] and renting you PlayStations
and couches and stuff,
[1:17] that I think that it really does merit,
[1:20] I think, a deeper look.
[1:21] Unfortunately, that deeper
look is gonna have to wait
[1:23] until I can actually get
my hands on something
[1:24] from Rent-A-Center,
[1:25] 'cause this one told me
they're out of PlayStations.
[1:28] And the online store
apparently doesn't work,
[1:30] which I find that hard to believe.
[1:31] So getting started online
just by submitting an order
[1:34] or you can visit a Rent-A-Center store.
[1:36] Tried that, didn't work.
[1:37] Step two, payment set up and delivery.
[1:39] We'll finalize your order
details, set up a payment plan,
[1:41] and schedule a free delivery
[1:43] or curbside pickup where available, okay.
[1:45] And then, enjoy worry free with
our easy ownership options,
[1:49] product repairs included during
the life of the agreement,
[1:51] and no long-term commitment.
[1:52] Okay, let's dive in.
[1:54] This is one of those ones
[1:55] where I know that maybe not all of us
[1:57] read the fine print on things.
[1:59] This is one where you should
probably read some fine print.
[2:01] Do I need a good credit score
to rent from Rent-A-Center?
[2:03] No.
[2:04] We consider many factors in
reviewing your application
[2:06] and regularly approve customers
[2:08] with less than perfect credit history.
[2:10] What is Rent-A-Center's return policy?
[2:11] At any time, you can contact your store
[2:13] to schedule a return of your product,
[2:14] or return the merchandise in
person and pause your payments.
[2:17] When you're ready, you can come back,
[2:18] reinstate your agreement to get
the same or comparable item,
[2:21] and pick up your payments
right where you left off.
[2:23] So you can see how easily this
could get you into trouble.
[2:26] You look at it and go, "30 bucks a week?
[2:28] I can handle that, no problem."
[2:29] But maybe four or five months from now,
[2:30] you can't handle that anymore.
[2:32] You have to return it,
[2:33] and you can very easily end
up with literally nothing.
[2:36] You borrowed a PlayStation
for four or five months,
[2:39] and you spent more than the
entire PlayStation was worth
[2:41] for the privilege.
[2:42] I'm gonna keep going.
[2:43] The longer I go here, the more
visibly upset I'm gonna get.
[2:46] So this is me.
[2:49] I'm seven-tenths upset.
[2:50] See how far we make it by the end.
[2:52] So your options are
small, flexible payments.
[2:54] You can own it when you're ready,
[2:57] or you can pick up where you left off.
[3:00] So here's the PS5.
[3:01] So let's just choose the
$23.99 a week option.
[3:04] So with this, I can either
pay the weekly amount
[3:06] for 82 weeks, or after
three months of paying,
[3:11] I can give them the cash price to own it.
[3:13] But then I would be paying $264 more
[3:17] than what the PS5 should actually cost.
[3:19] So why would anyone do this?
[3:21] Well, the answer is no one does it at all.
[3:23] It's here to give you a
same as cash price value.
[3:26] Just pay it off in three months, bro.
[3:28] When in reality if you could
pay it off in three months,
[3:31] you would absolutely not be
going through Rent-A-Center.
[3:33] It all just feels so predatory, right,
[3:35] and it just feels needlessly complicated.
[3:37] Like, why does it have to be like this?
[3:39] So I've gone through the initial process
[3:42] and the information they ask about you
[3:44] is your email address, phone number,
[3:47] and the last four digits of
your social security number.
[3:49] - [Alex] Holy crap, that's invasive.
[3:51] - They didn't ask for my name or anything.
[3:53] I gave them that.
[3:54] They pulled up my name,
date of birth, my address,
[3:57] every address I've lived in
the last 10 years instantly.
[4:01] So that's great, I mean
super convenient, right?
[4:07] So they approved me to
get $2,000 worth of stuff.
[4:14] But when I went through that process,
[4:18] the online account's like,
good job, you're approved.
[4:20] Let's go add more stuff to
your cart, yada, yada, yada.
[4:23] But at the same time,
the store has reached out
[4:25] and they've texted me basically and like,
[4:28] "Oh hey, we actually don't
have that PS5 in stock.
[4:31] We're gonna try to find you another one."
[4:33] I'm like, "Okay."
[4:34] So I'm pre-approved.
[4:36] That's the good news, right?
[4:37] I can get myself a PS5,
[4:38] everything's fine once
they track one down,
[4:39] except, I'm not pre-approved.
[4:41] Let me read you an email
that I just received.
[4:44] "Hey," this is from the store,
[4:45] "Hey, we actually need just
a little bit more information
[4:48] to complete your rental form."
[4:49] You know, we already have
your social security number,
[4:50] your date of birth, your
phone number, your address,
[4:53] all that kinda stuff.
[4:53] We just need a couple more things.
[4:54] I'm just gonna list off real quick.
[4:56] "We need your source of income,
so the name of your company,
[4:58] address, phone number, department,
pay cycle and pay stub,"
[5:03] casual, "your landlord,
[5:05] so please tell us the
name of your landlord,
[5:06] the phone number when you moved in.
[5:08] We need four personal
references, first and last name,
[5:11] phone number, relationship,
[5:12] and send us a photo of your
ID or driver's license."
[5:17] I don't like this, I don't
like this, I don't like this.
[5:19] If you can believe it,
[5:20] this is going even farther off the rails.
[5:23] So after they sent me that email
[5:26] asking for all that personal information,
[5:28] that would almost certainly make it clear
[5:31] that I am a YouTuber doing
a video on their product,
[5:34] I responded to the guy.
[5:35] So first of all, he did text me saying
[5:37] that they did find a PS5
for the same amount of money
[5:39] that I had agreed to
online, so that's great.
[5:41] But then I responded saying,
"Hey, I looked at the email
[5:44] and that feels like way
too much information
[5:46] for renting a game console.
[5:47] The online account said
it was already approved."
[5:49] He responded, "We are rent to own
[5:51] and we need to verify all that information
[5:53] before we are able to delivery
[5:55] or release any of our products.
[5:57] We also use Acima to finance
some of our products.
[6:01] They ask for less information."
[6:02] So Acima, come to find out
after a little bit of Googling,
[6:07] is another Rent-A-Center brand.
[6:09] So my understanding is that the corporate,
[6:12] like parent company of Rent-A-Center
[6:13] is called Upbound Group.
[6:15] They used to be called Rent-A-Center.
[6:16] They got sued a bunch, as
we'll probably discuss later,
[6:19] so they rebranded as the Upbound Group
[6:21] and they have multiple
like divisions, right?
[6:22] So there's Rent-A-Center,
[6:23] which actually has the
physical items in the stores,
[6:25] but Acima is kind of
like the same concept,
[6:28] except at other retailers.
[6:31] So I told him, "Yes, I would
love to check that out.
[6:35] Acima works on the items from your store?"
[6:37] And he responded, "Yes, correct.
[6:38] I'll send the link now."
[6:40] So we're like three layers deep here,
[6:43] and that if you are unable to be approved
[6:45] or you're not willing to
give them all the information
[6:47] to Rent-A-Center their side brand, Acima,
[6:50] will apparently also let
you do the same thing,
[6:52] but presumably with
less information needed.
[6:56] I just feel like this is
garbage all the way down.
[6:59] Like, we just keep digging and
it just gets worse and worse.
[7:03] 404 page not found.
[7:05] Are you kidding me?
[7:06] The link he gave me just doesn't work.
[7:08] Great great.
[7:10] Then, let's try this.
[7:11] Let's just try to shop online.
[7:12] Let's get something from,
I don't know, Walmart.
[7:16] That feels reasonable enough.
[7:17] Oh, okay, they're gonna tell
me the basics of leasing.
[7:19] So your path to ownership is this.
[7:21] "Acima owns the lease items.
[7:23] If you make all of the lease payments,
[7:25] or use an early purchase option,
you will own the property.
[7:28] If you do not use an
early purchase option,
[7:30] you may pay more than
double the retail price."
[7:33] So if you don't early purchase,
[7:35] you can pay more than double.
[7:36] Let's do this.
[7:37] Let's see what it would
cost if I bought a PS5.
[7:39] So PS5 is what, $650 now?
[7:41] Let's try that.
[7:42] So 65000,
[7:46] $650, which is the cost of my PS5,
[7:49] and the payment, let's just do monthly,
[7:51] just to make it clean and simple
compared to Rent-A-Center.
[7:54] What is my estimate?
[7:55] My initial payment's $49 a month.
[7:57] It would give me 12 payments,
[7:59] which means that I will
end up spending $1663!
[8:03] That's slightly better than
Rent-A-Center, but not by much.
[8:07] Oh, and here we go.
[8:08] It is the exact same thing.
[8:09] So they're asking for
the mobile phone number,
[8:11] the last four digits of
your social security number,
[8:13] and the email.
[8:14] Alright, fine, let me go
through the application
[8:17] and we'll see what
happens on the other side.
[8:19] Probably sadness.
[8:22] "Sorry, we were unable to
approve you at this time."
[8:25] - [Alex] What the, what?
[8:28] - I can apply again in 60 days.
[8:30] Okay, so this was actually
much more invasive
[8:34] than the Rent-A-Center.
[8:35] So I gave them the
initial bit of information
[8:37] like I did with Rent-A-Center,
[8:38] you know, the last four of
my social security number,
[8:40] phone number, and email.
[8:41] With Rent-A-Center,
that was enough for them
[8:43] to pull up all of my information
[8:44] and I got the approval from that point,
[8:46] until they asked for stuff over email.
[8:48] Acima said that was not enough,
[8:49] so I had to give them my
full social security number,
[8:51] my name, date of birth, my address,
[8:54] and then a second page asked
for my driver's license,
[8:57] my ID, my bank account number.
[9:01] I (beep) gave it to them, by
the way, just so you know.
[9:04] They also asked for my source of income,
[9:06] how often I'm paid, all this stuff.
[9:08] I should have lied.
[9:10] I gave them that.
[9:11] I gave them all of that,
and they have now told me
[9:15] that I have been not approved.
[9:17] This is the stupidest
thing I've ever done.
[9:20] The S word, it's thrown
around a lot on this channel:
[9:23] scam, I mean, and.
[9:26] - [Alex] Oh, thank God.
[9:27] - I'm not gonna lie,
I wanna like sit down.
[9:30] I wanna actually like dive
deeper on Rent-A-Center,
[9:34] on Acima, on the Upbound
Group as a whole, but I,
[9:42] this is nasty, like, this is bad.
[9:46] Okay, let's actually take a second
[9:49] and go over what just happened here.
[9:52] I gave Acima, again a company
fully owned by Rent-A-Center,
[9:55] my full social security
number, my address,
[9:58] my employment info, my
bank account number,
[10:01] my pay schedule, my income.
[10:03] I stupidly handed over
everything they asked for,
[10:06] and I got rejected by a company
[10:09] whose entire pitch is, "No credit needed.
[10:12] We approve people that
other places won't."
[10:15] So then who the (beep)
do you actually approve?
[10:17] Seriously?
[10:18] Like they're not gonna tell me.
[10:19] But it does kind of make you wonder
[10:21] that if a business model
that is built on charging
[10:23] almost $2,000 for a used PS5
[10:27] only works if you quite
literally have no other choice.
[10:30] But look, maybe this was just me, right?
[10:33] It was just my experience.
[10:34] I got unlucky.
[10:35] Well, about that.
[10:37] Back in 2022, the
California Attorney General
[10:40] sued Rent-A-Center, who ended
up settling for $15.5 million.
[10:45] The state alleged they had
a whole list of things,
[10:47] bait and switch advertising,
forced auto renewal payments,
[10:51] limiting how customers could return items,
[10:53] so they got stuck on longer payment plans.
[10:55] And California specifically
called out Rent-A-Center
[10:58] for inflating their cash
values by 15% across the board
[11:02] to force customers to pay more.
[11:03] So when I found that $800
cash price on a $650 PS5,
[11:08] yeah, that's no coincidence.
[11:10] And California isn't the only one.
[11:12] In 2023, Massachusetts hit
them for another 8.75 million
[11:17] for what the Attorney
General there called quote,
[11:19] "Abusive misconduct targeting
low-income communities."
[11:23] These stories are almost even worse.
[11:25] Rent-A-Center allegedly
filed criminal charges
[11:28] to collect debt, left harassing
and obscene phone calls,
[11:31] and threatened to
repossess household items
[11:33] over missed payments.
[11:35] The Wikipedia page is great actually.
[11:37] Underneath all the jargon
[11:38] about how they do all these donations,
[11:40] there's just a whole laundry list
[11:41] of all the times that
they've gotten in trouble
[11:43] with local and federal governments.
[11:45] Like, it is just a company
who has been a serial problem.
[11:50] It's almost like they
take advantage of people,
[11:52] and everyone has to give
'em a slap on the wrist
[11:54] every once in a while, and
they just keep doing it.
[11:56] Now maybe a lot of this,
although certainly not all of it,
[11:58] is technically legal, but Rent-A-Center
[12:01] honestly has one of the
scummiest business models
[12:03] I have ever seen.
[12:05] Because believe me,
[12:06] there are so many better
options out there.
[12:09] Used stuff off of Facebook marketplace,
[12:11] you really do have a larger expense.
[12:13] A loan from a credit union
[12:14] is gonna give you way lower
rates than Rent-A-Center.
[12:16] And even something like Klarna or Afterpay
[12:18] is probably a better option.
[12:20] Although, the whole
buy now pay later thing
[12:21] is a separate can of worms.
[12:23] We should do a video on it later.
[12:24] But like, it just, it's
all bad all the way down.
[12:27] In January of 2025,
[12:28] Upbound bought a fintech
company called Brigit.
[12:31] Brigit does quote, "earned wage access,"
[12:35] basically letting you
tap into your paycheck
[12:37] before your payday, plus like
some credit building stuff.
[12:40] They paid $460 million for it.
[12:43] But definitely, definitely
don't call it a payday loan,
[12:45] of course not.
[12:47] It's just a way to get
access to your paycheck
[12:49] before it actually arrives.
[12:51] Sure.
[12:52] And here's my favorite part.
[12:53] The Upbound Group has a really
touching company mission.
[12:57] "Elevate financial opportunity for all."
[13:03] What are you talking about?
[13:06] Financial opportunity for you, only you!
[13:10] Literally, no one else
wins in this scenario!
[13:12] It is just you!
[13:13] Now, we did try to reach out to Upbound
[13:15] to get their comment
on, well, all of this.
[13:18] And it turns out, this is hard to believe,
[13:21] there's actually no press contact
anywhere on their website.
[13:24] This is a publicly traded
billion dollar company
[13:28] that owns three consumer brands,
[13:30] and yet, the only way to contact corporate
[13:32] is through investor relations.
[13:34] And so in totally unrelated news,
[13:37] I, Austin Evans, am
now a proud shareholder
[13:40] of the Upbound Group.
[13:41] Yes, my friends, I've spent $19.17
[13:45] for a single share of the Upbound Group
[13:47] to make sure that I can
not only take advantage
[13:49] of their investor relations portal,
[13:51] 'cause I have a lot of questions
about the business model,
[13:53] but also as of recording this video,
[13:55] their earnings call is in three days.
[13:57] And I cannot wait to join
and ask some questions,
[14:00] about exactly how their
business model really works.
[14:03] And so if you too would like to join me
[14:05] in doing wildly irresponsible
things for content
[14:08] and see where this lands,
[14:10] definitely be sure to subscribe to the channel,
[14:11] and ring-a-ling that ding-a-ling button.
[14:13] Also quick PSA.
[14:14] If you've ever been a
Rent-A-Center customer
[14:16] in either California or Massachusetts,
[14:18] you should actually look
up those settlements.
[14:19] They may actually owe you some money,
[14:21] but until next time, my friends,
[14:23] I'm gonna go check my credit score
[14:24] and pretend that none
of this ever happened.
[14:26] Well, I'll be doing that
[14:27] at least until I wait for
the next board meeting,
[14:29] where I will be there.
[14:32] Wait, can I actually go to
the physical board meeting?
[14:34] I don't think so.
[14:35] Well maybe.