I was in need of a new refrigerator as I was losing food at an alarming rate. I did not qualify for enough credit to finance a new fridge. I couldnt find a suitable replacement on the used market that would fit the bill. So I turned to Sears. I saw an ad for Why Not Lease It and thought that would be a viable option.
Now I knew I would be loosing money doing a lease vs purchase but I had no other options. What I didnt know is that I could have had a top of the line 4 door dilly deluxe for what I ended up paying!
The original purchase price was $990. I had to pay $253 to start the lease and pay $85 ever other week for at least 3 months. At the end of 3 months the optional buy-out amount was $544. By the end of 3 months I had paid a total of $1103. Well as time went on, I basically forgot about the lease. I received no reminders or phone calls from the company. I realized today that I need to find out what my buy out is for the fridge (by the way, I am now 7 months into the lease). To date I have paid $1528. My buy out is still $509!!!!
All said and done I will have paid nearly $2100 for a $900 fridge! There is no verbiage in the lease agreement that I could decifer that said I would not be paying toward the buy out amount after the first 3 months. I gave them almost 4 months of free money! $680...more than the original buy out!
After phone calls and emails to the company, my only options are to keep paying the lease to no end, pay $509 to buy out or return the item to Sears and get a small amount (undetermined) of money back and be left at square one.