NZXT responds to damning Gamers Nexus video accusing it of running a "predatory, evil" rental scam

[LinkyPinky87]

These people obviously have never bought a house with a mortgage. That's the way payment systems work. If you can buy a house outright for cash you can buy it for the listing price but if you have to get a mortgage it's going to cost you two or three times as much or even more more. The same is true of purchasing a car on payments You always are going to pay more. The name for that isn't 'scam' or 'lies' it's 'life'.

Brother, if you're paying three times the worth of your house, then you need to speak to a financial advisor asap.

Set that aside, you're paying off YOUR house or YOUR car. End of the day, its yours (technically the lenders until its paid off)

 

[LinkyPinky87]

Nothing wrong with rentals - your car breaks down and you need a car, rental. Its an expensive way to do it.
Everyone knows it is far from cost effective to indefinitely rent a car from hertz or whoever... as apposed to getting a car loan, in which case after paying way too much.. you atleast own the car.

But thats what you need to do for the short term.
If you looked at it like that, renting a PC could be ok.

Its the fact they change the specs and prices, and the paid advertisement influencers giving some misleading information thats abit dodge. And the crazy contract they have for everything. Plus, I guess they also say stuff like they'll update it every two years or whatever... sort of implying that you should keep renting it forever.

I think the credit checking was also on the dodge too? Meaning someone who is dumb enough to rent the PC in the first place just going along with the influencers ... would most likely not be in the best financial position. Where as applying for a credit card or a loan, usually (very light term usually) will do a credit check (they want you, cause they want that interest money, but won't give it to you if you're a risk that they won't be able to get that interest money at all)

 

[BuckarooBonzaii]

We often don't look at the final cost of things because paying little at a time looks good and not a strain on your pocket until you realize holy crap, WTF.

 

[ChipBoundary]

Brother, if you're paying three times the worth of your house, then you need to speak to a financial advisor asap.

Set that aside, you're paying off YOUR house or YOUR car. End of the day, its yours (technically the lenders until its paid off)

Even after the lender is paid off you don't own the house, at least not in the US. All property belongs to the government. This is why you pay property taxes.

 

[toooooot]

Remember when NZXT's GPU raiser cable was so badly designed it was shorting and literally catching on fire? That seemed like a far more straight forward case for Gamers Nexus to terminate their advertisement deal at that time, but they went on with it.

So in other words: I *LIKE* Tech Jesus' new hard-hitting reporter phase that has brought legit concerns to light before, this just seems like a big nothing burger to me when compared to the intel fakery, EK employee and business partner abuse or even the inaccuracy and again business partner abuse from Linus: The man has a winning formula in these investigative/hit pieces but he seems like he ran out of targets for too long if he has to attach the well known schemes like this rent stuff: everyone knows it's a scam and I seriously doubt any significant portion of people ever fall for it.

It was not just NZXT. When those started to become popular, manufacturers, which NZXT most likely isn't, often produced low quality cables. I remember when I was afraid to use one because a lot of these had terrible reviews on Amazon.
They are not just pieces if cables. glued together. If you held one in your hands, you know they are fairly complex pieces.
They improved since then. And it means that these PC part makers will most likely have much more reliable riser cables now

 

[Loadedaxe]

These people obviously have never bought a house with a mortgage. That's the way payment systems work. If you can buy a house outright for cash you can buy it for the listing price but if you have to get a mortgage it's going to cost you two or three times as much or even more more. The same is true of purchasing a car on payments You always are going to pay more. The name for that isn't 'scam' or 'lies' it's 'life'.

You should probably go watch the video, in this instance you never own. This is in no way like financing a car or house....not even close!

 

[Uwguy]

Meh. The bigger problem is people wanting stuff they can't afford. What ever happened to saving for something? Nowadays its all about renting and payment plans. All of it is predatory but then again we're all adults here right?

 

[scavengerspc]

"To the NZXT community. We've heard your concerns. We are aware of the recent claims made against us and are actively reviewing the situation. Rest assured, we are committed to addressing this thoroughly and will share an official statement soon,"

May I translate?

We really didn't think we would get busted for this, at least certainly not so soon.
We are committed to coming up with an uninformative and ambiguous response that we can then claim will lay the matter to rest to the satisfaction of all here at NZXT.

 

[toooooot]

I just had a random thought. If a person does not understand how terrible this rent is, then
they most definitely have some mental deficiency.
NZXT is taking advantage of r-tarts.
That and not another reason
makes it so bad.

 

[Starfals]

I don't think it's fair to call them the "dumbest folks" with all the influencers implying you own it or saying no strings attached or their marketing that implies ownership.

Exactly, this is a major scam and its hard to understand whats going on with all the youtubers, lies and wrong texts on sites. In many cases, I would also blame the people for falling for it.. but not this time. Its weird that people can even say 1 positive thing about nzxt. Its a total trash of a company, just for doing this.

 

[mrbibu]

There is nothing outrageous about this deal. It's as bad as every other subscription like EA play or xbox gamepass. Nothing stops you from quitting the subscription after 3 months, right?

 

[GTvon]

You should probably go watch the video, in this instance you never own. This is in no way like financing a car or house....not even close!

I was taking about financing with payments vs cash out purchases. If you rent a home you pay more that you would for a mortgage and will never own it.

 

[GTvon]

May I translate?

We really didn't think we would get busted for this, at least certainly not so soon.
We are committed to coming up with an uninformative and ambiguous response that we can then claim will lay the matter to rest to the satisfaction of all here at NZXT.

No. It's just another option they offer, not the only way to get a computer but a good way to get one for a month if you need one.

 

[GTvon]

Even after the lender is paid off you don't own the house, at least not in the US. All property belongs to the government. This is why you pay property taxes.

Why would the government charge tax on property they own? You didn't understand what property tax is.

 

[Xander3600]

These people obviously have never bought a house with a mortgage. That's the way payment systems work. If you can buy a house outright for cash you can buy it for the listing price but if you have to get a mortgage it's going to cost you two or three times as much or even more more. The same is true of purchasing a car on payments You always are going to pay more. The name for that isn't 'scam' or 'lies' it's 'life'.

These aren't rent-to-own products, this is just renting for an extremely high price. Even taking out a high interest loan to buy a PC would be much cheaper than this, which was demonstrated very clearly by Gamers Nexus.

 

[Xander3600]

If you are financing a PC for 30 years like a home, you're a new kind of stupid. Homes are appreciating assets that often appreciate at a rate near the interest rate. PC's deprecate at very quick rate and will be pretty much be worthless in five years.

So people who are stupid deserve to be scammed? It's okay to exploit people who are weak? Is it okay to beat someone up and steal their wallet if you can get away with it? Is it okay to r*** someone if you can get away with it? Your argument is not only invalid, it is completely insane.

 

[Xander3600]

Nothing wrong with rentals - your car breaks down and you need a car, rental. Its an expensive way to do it.
Everyone knows it is far from cost effective to indefinitely rent a car from hertz or whoever... as apposed to getting a car loan, in which case after paying way too much.. you atleast own the car.

But thats what you need to do for the short term.
If you looked at it like that, renting a PC could be ok.

Its the fact they change the specs and prices, and the paid advertisement influencers giving some misleading information thats abit dodge. And the crazy contract they have for everything. Plus, I guess they also say stuff like they'll update it every two years or whatever... sort of implying that you should keep renting it forever.

I think the credit checking was also on the dodge too? Meaning someone who is dumb enough to rent the PC in the first place just going along with the influencers ... would most likely not be in the best financial position. Where as applying for a credit card or a loan, usually (very light term usually) will do a credit check (they want you, cause they want that interest money, but won't give it to you if you're a risk that they won't be able to get that interest money at all)

This isn't just a rental. Gamer's Nexus clearly demonstrated that it would be a far better deal to get a loan with the HIGHEST INTEREST RATE ALLOWABLE BY LAW and it would still be a significantly better deal.

 

[Dreadpirateflaps]

This isn't just a rental. Gamer's Nexus clearly demonstrated that it would be a far better deal to get a loan with the HIGHEST INTEREST RATE ALLOWABLE BY LAW and it would still be a significantly better deal.

Exactly. And you would actually own the pc at the end which you can then sell on if needed.

 

[Dreadpirateflaps]

No. It's just another option they offer, not the only way to get a computer but a good way to get one for a month if you need one.

Why would you pay hundreds to have a powerful gaming pc for one month? Regardless, it's not the concept of renting that he found was a scam.
It was the changing specs and the sheer cost over the term.

It's clear how many people didn't watch the video and just look at the headlines. (As always)

 

[PixelatedWolf]

There’s more than this being reported by GN. The allegation I had heard about is that during the Black Friday sale, the same system that sold with a 4090 now sells with a 4080. They created a new model called Player 4090 which was always listed as “on sale”, and they’ve only ever increased the price of that while continually listing it as “on sale” (it’s now $100 more expensive than ever before).

Happy to know I'm not the only person that got confused by their subscription based PCs too
I assumed originally that it was just an error but boy was I wrong.

 

[celinedrules]

True, but at least Affirm doesn't have interest rates that would make even a mob boss say "That's f**ked up!"

And with Affirm, you will own it in the end.

 

[celinedrules]

Even after the lender is paid off you don't own the house, at least not in the US. All property belongs to the government. This is why you pay property taxes.

That's stupid. It's like saying when you buy a car, you don't own it because you have to pay the registration, which is a tax, every year.

 

[techstrike]

This is a disgrace!

And pretty bad for this brand name that took many years to build their trust as pc cases.
g0d#m to these marketing scammers that moved to the computer industry (hardware & software) and they try to milk any person alive (including underage people).

Don't need to mention that people like Steve are likely hard to find in this web of misinformation.

 

[FryLock731]

These people obviously have never bought a house with a mortgage. That's the way payment systems work. If you can buy a house outright for cash you can buy it for the listing price but if you have to get a mortgage it's going to cost you two or three times as much or even more more. The same is true of purchasing a car on payments You always are going to pay more. The name for that isn't 'scam' or 'lies' it's 'life'.

A better example would be renting a house from a landlord. you're paying off someone else's mortgage, and you're never going to own it. it's a stupid payment system to use on a PC, and to even offer it seems scummy. People would be better off just applying for a personal loan, credit card, whatever, if the want a PC so bad, at least you will own the PC in the end.

 

[redlancer87]

These people obviously have never bought a house with a mortgage. That's the way payment systems work. If you can buy a house outright for cash you can buy it for the listing price but if you have to get a mortgage it's going to cost you two or three times as much or even more more. The same is true of purchasing a car on payments You always are going to pay more. The name for that isn't 'scam' or 'lies' it's 'life'.

That's true, but imagine a case where you pay your house payment for 30 years and at that time the bank says "Thanks for the cash, now please leave so we can sell the house to somebody else". That's what's going on here. There is no rent-to-own, it's just pay forever until you send us the computer back.