Costume rental fees have legal limits
Expensive deposits ensure timely costume returns.
Published Nov. 13, 2009
Every year in October, local vintage clothing stores open their businesses for Halloween costume rentals.
Maude Vintage Clothing and Costume, in downtown Columbia, specializes in vintage costumes and offers complete outfits for $30 for a two-day rental and $35 for one week.
With each rental, customers must provide a credit card number, sign a contract and promise to pay a deposit if rented items are not returned.
Maude Vintage employee Nikki Pyatt said there is no set amount for these deposits.
"It's really more about assessing how valuable it is to us and how hard it's going to be to replace," Pyatt said. "Like the Michael Jackson jackets, we put usually like a $400 or $500 deposit on them because they don't come back if we don't."
Bruer, who paid a $50 deposit for his rental at Gotcha, said the item he rented was not in the best condition.
"The costume had a little bit of wear and tear on it," Bruer said. "It had a tear going down the right shoulder."
The Maude Vintage customer contract secures the right to seize a deposit on an item if it is stained or damaged when it is returned. If a product is not returned and the deposit is seized, the renter still does not own the costume. In such cases, the customer will continue to accrue late fees and the store might file a civil case to regain property.
Late fees vary at stores. The Maude Vintage contract specifies a customer forfeits his or her deposit if no attempt is made within one week to return the costume.
There are legal limits to the amount of money businesses can charge to rent items, MU Student Legal Services coordinator Steve Concannon said.
"There are some principles of contract laws that are over and above what's in the contract that the courts would rely on," Concannon said. "There is a doctrine in contract law called Quantum Meruit which literally means, translated from Latin, unjust enrichment."
He said a business cannot charge a deposit amount higher than the amount it would cost them to replace the item. Also, a business is not legally permitted to accrue large late fees without trying to contact the customer and recover the item.
"The principle of the duty to mitigate means I can't just sit on the situation and not do anything about it," Concannon said. "You should have been trying in good faith to get it back."
Absolute Vintage rents costumes a little bit differently.
"We rent starting on Oct. 1," owner Jennifer Johnson said. "We just have you take it for the whole month."
Absolute Vintage rents out its regular vintage merchandise for half the buying price, holding the other half as a deposit to ensure the customer returns the piece. Along with the vintage items normally sold in the store, Johnson rents out other costumes for about a $30 rental and a $60 deposit.
"We lose stuff every year," Johnson said. "But it's not a huge problem."
She said she attributes customers' conscientious return of costumes to the laid-back rental time frame.
Freshman Haley Hoffmann said she had a positive experience renting her jailbird costume from Absolute Vintage.
"They were fair about everything," Hoffman said. "It was $20 to rent it, and you had to pay $40 extra if you got it stained."
Despite occasional costume casualties and reasonable rental prices, Johnson said it is still a good time of year for her store.