At the beginning, Crystal Sheffield thought it sounded like a pretty good deal.
A sales representative from a company called Provincial Smart Home Services came to her house in Madoc, Ont., roughly 200 kilometres east of Toronto, and talked her into a $26,000 loan to pay for a UV water filter, a reverse osmosis water system and smart home equipment, like a new thermostat.
The sales representative told her she would qualify for rebates that would help pay for it, Sheffield said in an interview.
“As a single mom of two kids, it was the middle of the pandemic … things were a lot tighter,” she said. “I thought, ‘This is great.'”
She alleges the salesperson never told her that the bi-weekly payments on the loan through a third-party lender — which started at about $65 — would more than double to nearly $150 two years later.
“I don’t have …