Centrepay is an online tool designed to help people on Centrelink pay for essentials like rent or bills through automatic deductions. But financial counsellors say the government service is instead being misused by some providers to exploit vulnerable Australians.
  • @[email protected]English
    1•1 year ago

    You have been consistently been alleging that the woman in question could have easily checked the total cost of her payments

    Yes? When faced with a ‘deal’ where you know the regular installment payment and the length of said debt, how difficult is it to figure out how much you need to pay by the end of it? Especially when everybody has a calculator in their pockets at every waking moment. If the answer is ‘too difficult’, I’m taking that as more reason for the education approach.

    • Tankiedesantski [he/him]English
      9•1 year ago

      And you know that no information was deliberately obfuscated or hidden by the vendor? The vendor currently being sued by regulators for operating a business model “designed to avoid consumer protections for financially vulnerable consumers.”?

      Curious as to how you know this information. Do you have a copy of the court filings? Please feel free to share if you do.

        • Tankiedesantski [he/him]English
          12•1 year ago

          Actually I’ll do one better. While you were deflecting, I found the court filings.

          Not shockingly, one of the main causes of action against the defendant is that they are dressing up a credit contract as a lease agreement to avoid interest rate caps (Section 3.2) and disclosure requirements (Section 3.3) which you’ll notice is exactly what I was talking about from the get go.

          Damingly:

          Let’s see you use that calculator in your pocket to determine if you’re getting a reasonable deal without being told the original price of the goods, the interest rate, and how the interest was calculated.