“We call it puppy payments, and you can make payments via lease or via traditional loan programme,” said David Salinas, who owns the shop on Oceanside Boulevard. “Just like any other transaction, whether you buy a car or a puppy, or jewellery, the transaction is the same when you make a payment.” Salinas’s Oceanside store, and another in National City, offer four financing options. WAGS is just one of them. Salinas said 90 percent of his customers choose to finance the cost of their new pet, allowing them to take home a dog they otherwise wouldn’t be able to afford. “I think that’s very unfair that they are saying we are being fraudulent,” he said.
The Claessens were in the market for a dog because their previous bichon frise, which they had for seven years, had died. They could not afford to pay the $495 asking price for the dog at Oceanside Puppy, so they chose the financing option. After 27 months of payments, they could pay a $93.52 fee to end the lease or $187.04 to purchase the pet - “plus official fees and taxes.” According to the couple, no store employee mentioned that they were signing up for a lease rather than a purchase. Salinas said his employees do the best they can to explain the financing packages, but it’s the customer’s responsibility to read the terms. Claessens found himself back at the store less than 24 hours after taking the dog home on Nov. 13. He cancelled the contract.
YouTube link.
Salinas said, “We will make it a point to educate our customers a little bit more about the financing options so there is no confusion. We are actually a very legitimate moral company. We knew there was a need for purebred puppies in the store. We do a wonderful job at being able to help customers afford puppies. We provide amazing puppies, not from puppy mills.” Claessens’ wife, Françoise, said she hopes no one else has to go through what the couple did. “It’s a lot of trauma. When you don’t have children at home, you look at that pet as a child. This is a bad, bad disappointment, and they hurt your emotions,” she said. “What they are doing is irresponsible.” The Claessens later went to a dog shelter and obtained another bichon frise, this one for free.
There's a copy of the leasing agreement here. (PDF doc.)
9 comments:
Although I still think it's a scam. Who ever heard of paying $1,246.90 for a bichon frise? However, the contract says more than once that it is a lease. Glad they were able to get out of it.
It's pretty common to find puppies from popular breeds for $2,000+ dollars in the US.
It's not that it even really cost that much. They could have paid $495 to buy the pup outright. They chose to finance it, which would have cost a total of almost $2,800 to buy the same dog.
They really could have done much better taking out a loan from a bank, or even just getting a credit card.
Is there some sort of genetic problem that stops most Amreicans haviny an IQ bigger than their shoe size? If you can't afford $495 dollars, how are you going to afford vet's fees? What makes paying almost $2,800 a more sensible option? How stupid can you get!
Choose to finance something that is not vital. Check
Sign stuff you do not understand. Check
Whine about it in the news. *facepalm*
I'm going to pile on too. They can't afford to pay $495 outright, so they sign up to pay $96 a month for 27 months? Holy cow!! Freaking morons almost make me embarrassed to be American.
This is just like the terms for rent-to-own furniture and appliances. If people saw the total paid and the interest rates, they'd walk away. But instead, they only focus on the low monthly payments.
Those people are stupid! The dog was probably smarter...
A lot of people don't understand how "financing" works. They might have thought they'd just pay $95 a month for five or six months until they'd paid the $500 plus a reasonable (small) interest charge. Didn't read the fine print until they got home.
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