That’s something I could never understand: how do people sign up for as many as 10 credit cards and then buy stuff with money that isn’t really there, then dealing with debt collectors?
It doesn’t make sense to me, but I’ve met people who are OK with living like that
Did people think this wouldn’t catch up to them?
What a terrible debt to accrew. Dont get me wrong I believe everyone deserves a holiday. But man you’re just blowing borrowed money at this point.
So I have thought about doing this option for some large purposes, but figured there must be a catch. There’s no interest, but I believe there is a flat fee for each of the distributed payments in these plans. I thought it was a bit scummy how it’s so not clear that was the deal.
On paper interest free loaned money is free money. You could buy a short term CD and come out ahead before the payments catch up. Or maybe you have annual credit card minimums, so it makes sense to distribute the payment of goods from Dec to January the following year to have more qualifying payments on a rewards card or something.
But between the challenge of not keeping track of many pay later options with different dates and not being aware of the fees, these things seem like a disaster. There’s also a whole nightmare for how these things work with returns or items never received…
Uh not sure what service you’ve seen but the ones I’ve used in the past had no fees. The amount times all the payments was exactly the checkout cart amount for paying with CC. I’ve used them a few times on larger items and just autopayed to my CC so I get rewards and 0% loan, never had to check on the dates they were due but they also text you to remind you the autopay.
I also had to return some RAM from one of the pay services mid payments. They froze the payments with no fee and the merchant updated them automatically to let them know I did infact return it. Got the amount paid already refunded within the week.
It was for a more expensive purchase, like a 2000 or 3000 dollar item. For merchants BNPL is about twice as expensive than your average credit card fees. Do some vendors have options to pass that off to the buyer?
For returns, I see articles like this pop up from time to time which made me nervous: https://www.cnbc.com/2022/06/29/buy-now-pay-later-loans-can-get-complicated-when-you-want-a-refund.html
Also, when it comes to credit card transactions… do you get points like normal. IE if your credit card offers you warranty protection or category bonus, does the payment going to the BNPL break the category point or protection since the BNPL actually pays for the item/good/service while your credit card is just paying off the loan?
With blood.
Stop. Buying. bullshit.
While i don’t do it anywhere to the level of needing a loan. I get it, the dopamine hits hard and everyone is fighting their own demons.
Life is short and they’re fucked anyway, so what’s another £50 a month to get some joy out of their situation?
I have debt i likely won’t repay in the next 4 years… Should i put my family’s life on hold? I might save to go on a nice holiday instead of paying it off sooner. Kids will only have one childhood and it’s a sacrifice people have to consider.
Consumers are now mastering the art of turning ‘Regret’ into a new currency.