Legalized loan sharking
I saw this on Slashdot last week, an article regarding “Getting the best deals from Dell.” One bullet point really stuck out, about financing offers:
9. DPA/Dell Preferred - This is the Dell credit card, like a Sears, Macy’s or Radio Shack credit card. Typically a high rate, low limit card. The lowest APR is still around 18-20%, and that comes with a $5,000 limit. The $4,000, $3,000 and $2,000 limits have rates in the mid to high 20s. The lowest limt, $1,500, has an APR of 29.99%. NEVER USE THIS UNLESS THERE IS A KILLER NO INTEREST PROMOTION.
a. Interesting Note: In the Back-To-School season of 2005, DFS (Dell Financial Service) was issuing cards to 18 year olds with a $7,000 limit and a 29.99% interest rate.
This is nothing new, but it always gets to me — credit cards, car loans, banks, etc can charge you that much interest since the 1980. But you know, if you or I were to loan some money to a friend or colleague at an interest rate of more than 5-12% (dependent on state law), we would be “loan sharking” because we’re not a bank and they have separate rules. What crap. How can anyone, bank or individual, get away with charging 29.99% interest!?! Even better is point a, the exploitation of freshmen college students. Bah, this should be a crime!
/end rant
On IE6, the first letter of each line in the paragraph following the quote are overlapped to the left.
That interest rate is crazy. I would never ever think about putting a new computer on a card like that. Either I can pay it off quick and don’t need the card, or I don’t need to be paying way too much over a year+. There are very few things I’ve been willing to finance in my life so far, and a computer will never be one of them. (He says now…)