Masterclass, Money

Radio Rentals to refund almost $20m to customers

Published on January 23, 2018 5:49 am, by Pete Lalor

Thorn Group’s Radio Rentals (and the other brands it operates under including RR and Rentlo Reinvented) has agreed to refund almost $20m to customers affected by poor lending practices.

Note that there is also a company trading as Radio Rentals in South Australia that is completely independent of Thorn Group’s Radio Rentals businesses and is not involved in this issue in any way.

ASIC found that Thorn Group’s Radio Rentals had:

• Provided finance to customers without making adequate inquiries about whether finance was suitable for the customers
• Received payments from the customer that were more than the payments required under the terms of the customer’s lease (these excess payments totalled $13.8m)

Radio Rentals is refunding or writing off around $6.1m in fees they have charged to affected customers who defaulted on their lease payments and refunding the excess payments made by customers.

Radio Rentals have committed to contact affected customers but if you have questions you can contact your closest Radio Rentals store, call the customer support line on 1800 464 732 or register your contact details at:

• www.radio-rentals.com.au/stay-informed (all states except for South Australia)
• www.rr.com.au/stay-informed (South Australia only)

You can also get more details from ASIC.

We agree with ASIC’s advice to consumers – ‘To all customers renting goods, check your contract to see what your options are at the end of your lease. You may be better off buying the good cheaply than continuing to pay your regular rental payments. You could end up paying much, much more than the product is worth.’

At MoneyBrilliant, we’ve got your back. We’ve automatically contacted MoneyBrilliant customers that might be entitled to a refund. It’s all part of the MoneyBrilliant service. To make sure you know about refunds you might be entitled to sign up now at moneybrilliant.com.au