I find it saddening that the commenters here are having trouble with being empathetic. People who are exploited don't need your advice. We all know that we can

I find it saddening that the commenters here are having trouble with being empathetic. People who are exploited don't need your advice. We all know that we can live in a lean-to made of spruce branches and dry pine needles if we had to. That's not the problem these people have. Maybe the commenters here offering their well-intentioned advice are unaware of the shame and guilt that goes with being poor. It is widely believed in popular culture that your financial situation and future are within your hands and beyond reasonable misfortunes, if you end up poor, it's self-inflicted: you mismanaged your money, you decided to have an alcohol addiction, you don't know how to follow safety procedures and lost your leg, you didn't study hard in school and save money to go to college. You didn't work hard enough. You're lazy. You're stupid. You smell. You could dress better. Blah blah blah. The problem is that these rent-to-own businesses exploit that shame and guilt. They're using some pretty under-handed tactics to convince economically disadvantaged people that they can afford these luxury goods they clearly cannot. They try to sound appealing by offering luxury goods to people who cannot otherwise afford them so that they can stop feeling like they are failures. They obscure the true cost of their payment plans with sticker prices that emphasize the lowest term prices and not the full cost (car advertisers like to show the lease-cost in the commercial but are required in most places I know to disclose the full price of the car in the ad). To say that these people are "stupid" for falling in with these businesses is ignorant of the predatory practices these businesses are using and the complicating factors which result in poverty.