Underestimating the Consumer

I have published an article before that argues about the “unsophisticated” consumer. The point I emphasized before was that unsophistication should not be a big factor in a judgement because innocence can go 2 ways: Inability to understand the situation or unwillingness. And there is a big difference.

But today, let’s focus on the argument itself. Let’s find out why the cases almost always focus on unsophisticated consumers and why its prevalent use is actually detrimental to consumers.

Predatory Behavior

One of the biggest and most important functions of law and justice is power regulation. It’s a deterrent for predatory behavior. 

If we look closely at the term “predatory”, it describes a power dynamic. Predator and prey. Hunter and hunted. It gives us an impression that one side has more power than the other side.

That is the main reason why the unsophistication argument comes up. Because unsophisticated consumers can be victims of predatory practices due to their inability to comprehend the situation.

However, if we flip the situation, this can look absurd to us because of our preconceived notions of the power dynamic. If a predator files a lawsuit against a prey, it looks preposterous without context. 

Unable or Unwilling

We all know that knowledge is power. This is one of the universal truths that society agrees upon. And that is one of the big differences between inability and unwillingness. 

Inability to understand a situation means that an entity does not have the knowledge and resources to comprehend while unwilling entities know the situation but chose to do nothing about it.

If we go back to the power dynamics, when a consumer has knowledge/understanding of the situation, it can be argued that in that situation, they have the power. Especially if they know that their “unsophistication” can be weaponized in a lawsuit.

Empowered Consumer

It may seem conspiratorial, but if you really think about it, it seems that our industry is making efforts to make the consumer “sophisticated” while the majority of groups for the consumers seem to just emphasize consumer “unsophistication” but not doing anything about it.

And what’s more dangerous is the precedent that they set by always portraying the consumer as “unsophisticated.” It makes the consumers less responsible and accountable for their actions, and it develops an ignorant culture. If they don’t understand it, they are not liable for it, and that is a very harmful mindset.

Media outlets and other resources seem to only give consumers advice on how to “deal with debt collectors”. They don’t seem to bother to try and understand what the ARM industry really does, and what we really do to help fix the main problem: paying the debt.

But if you look at the content that our industry leaders produce, they give consumers advice on how to pay their debt. We even have financial education drives such as RMAI’s Financial Literacy Rocks! which aims to empower consumers by giving them knowledge about finances and make it accessible and personalized to specific demographics.

I believe that this is the true solution that consumers need. We should not make the consumer remain unsophisticated, we should do something about it. 

Education and empowerment is needed for the betterment of our consumer’s culture, the growing relationship of our industry to consumers, and the growth of our economy.

Let’s talk more about this. Message me here or email me at [email protected]