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A few weeks ago we had another strong winter storm. We lost a large, mature tree and being the frugal person I am, I saw the opportunity to convert it into a few years of logs for our wood burning stoves. Unfortunately my cheap electric chainsaw gave up the ghost during operations.
Yesterday I purchased myself a gas powered chainsaw from the online website of a large DIY business. While navigating through the purchase and hitting the click and collect button, two times I was offered an option to spread the cost over three months and then a final offer of 15% discount if I opened a charge card with easy payment options.
I found this deeply irritating. Three times during a simple purchase I was interrupted with offers to turn buying a chainsaw into a credit arrangement. This wasn’t helpful customer service, it was obstruction dressed as convenience, designed to wear down my resistance.
What bothered me most was the timing. I’d already decided to buy. I was at the checkout. Yet the retailer treated this committed moment as a prime opportunity to push financial products I neither wanted nor needed. The underlying assumption felt patronizing: that I might struggle to afford a few hundred dollars outright, or that I’d be impulsive enough to accept deferred payment simply because it was offered.
This experience revealed an uncomfortable truth about modern retail. Companies now profit from customer debt rather than from selling products. They’ve calculated that enough vulnerable customers will accept these offers to outweigh the frustration of those who refuse. Short-term payment plans have become so normalized that paying in full is presented as the alternative rather than the default.
Using a chainsaw can be a dangerous endeavour, my wife Suzie panics anytime I unpack the beast. It’s easy to imagine what could go wrong. It’s visceral, front and center in your mind, you have to respect the tool. I feel the temptation for the tools of easy credit are nearly as dangerous as the chainsaw I wield but the instinctive caution doesn’t trigger with a lot of people. It’s an insidious trap that can destroy lives.
The question is why we’ve accepted this behavior. Why is there no regulatory pushback against multiple credit solicitations within a single transaction? I bought a chainsaw yesterday. But the retailer was more interested in selling me something far more dangerous, easy credit. No wonder debt levels are high. It’s just too easy.
Easy answer.
Our politicians have been bought by companies dealing with money, think insurance, banks, Wall St….and the healthcare companies, think pharma, PBM.
Rather cynical and overall I think inaccurate.
Those entities are not thinking individuals, they are made up of a lot of individuals, employ thousands more and generally contribute to society and the economy. Their profits are shared with investors and used to create useful things.
If you refer to health insurance companies when mentioning healthcare companies, there is nothing except misinformation out there people like to believe.
They are not the enemy as much as it’s easy to believe so.
Well when I see those solicitations if I have it to pay it and the offer is to stretch it out for 6 months same as cash I’ll usually take that offer and invest that money in a high yielding savings account and whatever it generates it’ll be a discount so don’t hate it profit from it if it even is just a little.
It’s certainly a possibility. Although, for me, it definitely falls into the realm of too much hassle. I guess it would be a form of stoozing.