Consuming Interest
Waiting for Molony
By LESLIE ADRIAN Waiting for Molony is the Government's favourite escape hatch—whenever any incon- venient consumer topic is let loose in the House. I'm beginning to wonder if the wait will be worth while. After all, it is ten years since the Hodson Committee reported on weights and measures, and still the obsolete law on this subject is un- touched by the hand of modern legislation.
It could be argued (very convincingly) that the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade accepted (on behalf of the Government) a moral obligation to amend the outdated law relating to hire purchase. But I'm not optimistic. If in the outcome the Government does not want to be tough with the finance houses and the over-eager dealers, or be accused of being soft with the overpaid and luxury-loving working class, it will have no trouble in putting the whole thing off till the Greek Kalends.
As the law stands, a hire-purchase deal is not protected by law if more than £300 is involved. But many people think it is. As a result there has been a great deal of injustice and sharp dealing (as the Commons debate revealed). A man who could not keep up the payments on his car took it back voluntarily, but still had to find the remainder of two-thirds of the full price of the car. Many people have been misled by HP agreements (and their bastard brothers, credit-sales agreements) because of their com- plexity. and the absence of a standard and easily read form of contract. Mr. Williams's Bill would have raised the present HP limit of £300 to £1,000, but done nothing about the form of contract.
Such contracts should show unmistakably the total hire-purchase prices as well as the cash price. In Australia, as CAC have pointed out, a maximum rate of interest has been made legally enforceable. The law should also require the dealer to state the true rate of interest—which is approximately double the apparent rate, if the repayment period is more than a year. The Williams Bill did include a clause giving both parties a forty-eight-hour 'escape' period, which would serve to protect the housewife against the pressure salesman on the doorstep. The honest dealer would not mind the delay. It is the mar- ginal racketeer who cannot afford to give his customers time to think over the terms that he is offering. Licensing by the Board of Trade would not be a popular move with firms selling mainly on the never-never, but it would serve to discourage the spiv.
As several commentators have demonstrated, it is an anomalous situation when the finance house acts simultaneously as banker, seller and owner of the goods which it has never seen, and of whose quality it is in all probability ignorant, and for which it is in no way legally responsible. A clause to abolish these anomalies was the crux of Mr. Williams's Bill—and the focal point of the hostility from the Finance Houses Asso- ciation. This clause alone would put paid to the unscrupulous doorstep dealers and the here- today-and-gone-tomorrow emporiums. The un- dertakings so airily given by this growing band of quick-sale brothers could no longer be re- pudiated by the finance companies (as happens continually at the moment) once such a clause became law.
While heated exchanges of one sort of fact or another are made in the daily press about the nature of the advertising that should be per- mitted to interrupt children's television, a much more subtle kind of propaganda has been seep- ing through unnoticed, or at least, unchecked, for years.
I refer to the free general knowledge booklets put out for use in schools by rubber, sugar, steel and other interests and industries. Like the Take Home Books which some employers provide for their employees (who as adults may be sup- posed to have a certain freedom to take 'em or let 'em alone) these well-designed and printed classroom aids peg away surreptitiously at pub- licising a product or an idea, while ostensibly educating the innocent reader.
The latest example is from Coca-Cola, called Focus on Thirst, 'presented with the compli- ments of your local Bottler of Coca-Cola.' The accompanying handout describes it as an edu- cational aid for schools.
How is a thirst acquired? How is it quenched? The text proceeds to give a potted history of mineral waters (real) and mineral waters (bubbly and flavoured). The last page deals with storage of liquids and has `The silhouette of a famous modern bottle . . . Can you guess which?' Well, can you?
Whether you're off to Switzerland for a fort- night or to Paris for the weekend, you prob- ably take travellers' cheques; and perhaps you do not realise that the deal you get with these can vary considerably.
Usual denominations are £2, £5, £10, £20 and £50. Almost every bank issues them, as well as Thos. Cook and American Express. Rates for the service vary; flat rates of £1 per cent. (Ameri- can Express) and I5s. per cent. (Thos. Cook) or a sliding scale from 25s. per cent. (in fact 6d.) on a £2 cheque to 5s. per cent. (in fact 2s. 6d.) on a £50 cheque from most banks. Cheap enough, in any case.
Where Cook's and American Express excel is that they guarantee repayment if your cheques are lost or stolen, provided you have signed them at the top and have not countersigned them. American Express will reimburse you. they say, `almost at mice'; Cook's say it may take a few weeks, especially when they get really busy in summer, though they would not leave you stranded abroad while they sorted ,it out. This guarantee applies even if somebody else successfully forges your counter-signature and cashes the cheques.
Often people are not quite sure how much they have lost; this is sorted out when the cheques cashed have come in. Cook's told me they do get people who claim at first for less than they have in fact lost. If it transpires that you lost less than you claimed, you will naturally have to repay the balance.
Banks only reimburse against a guarantee of indemnity, i.e., if somebody else successfully cashes your cheques, you'll have to pay for them. And they may make you wait up to six months before reimbursing you.
Previous page
