Rob Rose asks in what world it would make sense for a retailer’s customers to pay R25 996 for a flat-screen TV that cost R9 999 DON’T be alarmed at the ruckus you’ll hear if you drive past Lewis’s head office, near Woodstock in Cape Town. That metronomic flapping noise you’re struggling to decipher is just the sound of chickens coming home to roost. Last week, lending watchdog Summit Financial Partners released alarming results of a “mystery shopping” trip it had made to a Lewis store in Howick, KwaZulu Natal.It was an exercise that didn’t cover Lewis in much glory.Summit’s “mystery shopper” supposedly took a shine to a flat-screen LED television, going for a song at R9 999. So what do you imagine it would have cost him to pay off an LG branded TV over 30 months?A rather sobering R25 996,98, when the costs are totted up.The reason the cost balloons so fantastically lies in the fine print. Lewis tacks on all manner of charges — including a R1 710 “extended warranty”, a compulsory R75...
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