The experience of Rent-A-Center may be instructive. The rent-to-own retailer's run has been turbulent of late, with executive turnover and activist investors agitating for the company to sell itself. One of those activists, Glenn Welling of Engaged Capital, noted in a 2016 letter to Rent-A-Center's management, that rent-to-own outlets straddle the line between consumer finance and retail. Rent-A-Center's "Achilles' heel" in the markets, Welling said, was public perception of the company as a "predatory lender" that "[takes] advantage of a financially challenged customer by locking them into expensive obligations which perpetuates a ' cycle-of-debt.'"