New York passes country's toughest law on rent-to-own businesses - interest rates capped

The legislation - signed by Gov. Paterson last week - forces companies to better disclose the terms of the loans and limits how much they can charge.

That's welcome news to Bishop Eric Figueroa, whose Brooklyn church leased a TV from Rent-A-Center to watch the 2008 election results and paid dearly for it.

"We thought we were just going to use it, pay for it for the time we had it and we discovered we were already locked into a contract," he said.

"Getting out of the contract was very difficult. Over the life of it, we would have paid for the television four or five times."

Figueroa, pastor of the New Life Tabernacle in Bedford-Stuyvesant, said he knew it was his responsibility to examine the fine print.

But, he noted, contracts are so confusingly written, it's hard to know what you're signing.

"Even men of influence and means would have difficulty interpreting what the long-term consequences of rent-to-own were," he said.

After complaints and protests from New Yorkers who said they were snowed by such contracts, State Sen. Eric Adams (D-Brooklyn) and Assemblywoman Audrey Pheffer (D-Queens) helped push through the bill.