I am a sucker for catalogues and the one that dropped through my letter box today took my breath away. If I buy a new washing machine from Buy-as-You-View, whose catalogue it was, I can pay a total of £1,081.08 for a Hotpoint washing machine with service cover (the WMF740K if you really want to know) when the same machine – with 3 years service cover – costs a mere £462.49 from online retailer Laskys, with similar prices at Dixons, Currys etc.  That’s more than double – £618.59 to be exact – for the privilege of paying weekly.  Oh yes, and delivery is extra for BAYV’s machine.

Buy-As-You-View likes to stress its respectable credentials, sponsoring the Inspire Wales awards, promoting ‘green’ working and most astonishing of all talking up its ‘corporate social responsibility’.  There is another spin, of course – blatant profiteering from low income households.  Inspire Wales? More like rip off Wales.