While many people rush to finish their Christmas shopping, other families face heading into the new year laden with debt after buying goods at exorbitant prices from mobile trucks, Radio New Zealand reports.
The Labour Party launched the “Do Not Knock” campaign in Mangere on Saturday, to encourage people in the area to put stickers up at their houses to say no to door-to-door salespeople and clothing truck operators.
The campaign is part of a wider initiative from Consumer New Zealand, which will send out 10,000 stickers and letters throughout the region to encourage people to turn the salespeople away.
Vai Harris of the Vaiola Pacific Island Budgeting Service in Mangere says she is tired of seeing prices such as $20 for a tin of corned beef, $66 for some powdered milk and $35 for a packet of noodles. “We've got a client who bought 11 grocery items ... guess how much it cost them? $687.”
Harris said the problem was worse at Christmas time, but it had been something that had held back families in the area for years.
She said it was not just small ticket items the families were buying on credit. “Sometimes they make them sign for a mobile phone - and those cost sometimes $2,000, $4,000. And at the end of the day, these people sign up, and when the time comes to pay up, there's hardly any money.”