Abuses From Aaron Rents

Folks, it is unfathomable to me why anyone - a customer of Aaron Rents in this case - to put up with any kind of abusive speech from it's employees either calling you on the phone, or visiting you at your doorstep. Being late on a payment does not give a company the right to demoralize you, insult you on the phone, or worse, threaten you in person.

I was once customer of Aaron Rents. I rented-to-own a large-screen TV that - ended up burning up into a small, dense piece of plastic when my house burned down. Ummm, I had just gotten done paying that TV off when that happened, not a pleasant experience, but then again, a house fire is probably not most people's first choice of a great time.

Anyway, I was late several times on payments. I unabashedly admit this. Paychecks didn't always coincide with payment dates. I always made the payment - within 5 days of due date - but certainly not all of my payments were on time.

One day I was working on my yard in front of my house. An Aaron Rents truck pulled up. A young guy - very large man though - walked up to me, I knew this guy and he knew me. He actually got in my face and demanded the payment right then and there or he was going to take the TV, right then and there.

I don't mean in a civil way, either, he was posturing as if he were going to hurt me if I didn't succumb to his agreement.

I stood up, I'm no small man myself, got right back in his face and informed him if he didn't back down, get OFF of my property, I was going to defend myself and the outcome would not be pretty, and THEN I would be calling the police. I further informed him about the FACT that he's ON - MY - PROPERTY - THREATENING me, ON MY PROPERTY.

I don't take such things lightly. I don't care how big a man is, I am not going to have a person talking to me like that - on my property. He's lucky I didn't thrust my right foot into his crotch, as I had determined to do if he had further forced himself upon me.

Let me tell you something straight, right here and now: They CANNOT just walk into your house and take whatever you're renting from you!! If you give them permission, of course, but if you don't, they are engaging in an act of burglarly and criminal trespassing!! Now, if you WANT them to take the thing away, fine, let them go in there and get it. If you are going to pay the bill, tell those dudes to take a hike!!

If they don't leave, CALL THE POLICE!!! You are NOT a criminal!! It is not a crime to owe money. It is a CIVIL problem, if it comes to that, it MUST be taken up in the courts. PERIOD. There is no state in the Union that has a provision that says some thuggish looking dudes from a rental company can come and harass you, threaten you and force themselves into your house to get their rental unit. Police can't force that upon you, either.

I called the manager of that store after I told that FREAK to get OFF of my property before I HURT him and informed him of his employee's actions and my intended reaction if they EVER come back to my house and act like THAT again. He took me seriously - I was QUITE serious - those guys never showed up again.

Now, did it end there? No. In a subsequent month, I was a few days late - 2 days I think I remember, and some person from that store called and started verbally abusing me on the phone. I hung up on that person and went down to the store. I would like to SEE these people talking to me like that TO MY FACE. No-one there took credit for the call, of course, the manager - of whom I was on a first-name basis at this point - Brian - didn't specifically condone that kind of call, either, but who knows if he was saying something different when I left. The end of the story? I paid every payment, owned the TV - and lost it to flames.

Well, that wasn't Aaron's fault and certainly I didn't blame them for that.

I write this stuff for the Googlers in the world that are looking for such information. I was reading a story about RAC - Rent A Center and then found more about all of the rental centers. I would NEVER put up with the abuse I read about in the RAC story, which was far worse than what I reported about my experience with Aaron Rents.