Not to mention, if you miss a payment, you typically have to pay interest on the full original loan from the date you took it out, at some egregiously high interest rate.
I used to work at Best Buy waaay back in the day. They would advertise stuff like buy a $1500 TV and get 0% interest for 2 years. But the fine print was exactly like you just described. You could make 23 of 24 payments on time, but if you were late they would hit you with 20+% interest compounding based off the entire loan amount.
So if you missed just one payment you’d get hit with like a $500 bill.
Credit company advertised 2 years interest free. The scheduled repayments kicked off either a fortnight or a month (can’t remember exactly, this was over 20 years ago) from the purchase date. This made the last payment fall outside of the interest free period, causing you to pay for all of the interest that would have been accrued in that period.
Making one extra payment probably would have been enough to clear it before the 2 year mark.
But now that you mention it, that’s kind of how the Best Buy deal worked. They didn’t automatically split up the payments for you like a car or home loan. It was a credit card, so you could pay the minimum balance every month. But paying the minimum balance wasn’t enough to actually pay off the whole thing in 2 years.
Nearly 30%, for the scheme we have access to at my work. 28.99%. That exact number may in fact inform veterans of the industry of exactly who we use for financing.
It’s also how they get you to start using it. Accept the 0% interest loan, now the app is on your phone, now you’re seeing options for lower monthly payments, now you’re thinking about what you could afford with the app as opposed to what you have right now.
I bought an escooter through one of those apps and paid 0% interest, so it worked out for me, but you have to be careful about it.
More demand and more inflation. Then they will charge fee and seller wont be able to get rid of this payment option as most of customers already use it. Then this fee is included in price leading to more inflation. 0% interest rate is cancer on top of consumerism
There is a small percentage surcharge imposed by whoever is providing the financing, but it’s basically the same amount as what the credit card companies charge per transaction, on the order of 1-2%, so from the store’s perspective it’s the same either way. It’s not quite correct to say that customers who are not financing hot dogs are paying for others who are, but all of the customers financing hot dogs are indeed paying for each other.
On the topic of credit cards, by the way, in some states it is legal for the merchant to pass the processing costs on to the customer and in some cases the shyster bastards actually do it. To my knowledge most or all of the banks providing in store financing or buy-now-pay-later schemes in fact prohibit that practice, so there is at least that.
That legitimately surprised me.
0% interest rates is paid for by the fees if you miss a payment
Not to mention, if you miss a payment, you typically have to pay interest on the full original loan from the date you took it out, at some egregiously high interest rate.
I used to work at Best Buy waaay back in the day. They would advertise stuff like buy a $1500 TV and get 0% interest for 2 years. But the fine print was exactly like you just described. You could make 23 of 24 payments on time, but if you were late they would hit you with 20+% interest compounding based off the entire loan amount.
So if you missed just one payment you’d get hit with like a $500 bill.
Buddy of mine was stung in a similar manner.
Credit company advertised 2 years interest free. The scheduled repayments kicked off either a fortnight or a month (can’t remember exactly, this was over 20 years ago) from the purchase date. This made the last payment fall outside of the interest free period, causing you to pay for all of the interest that would have been accrued in that period.
Making one extra payment probably would have been enough to clear it before the 2 year mark.
Ooo that feels like it should be illegal.
But now that you mention it, that’s kind of how the Best Buy deal worked. They didn’t automatically split up the payments for you like a car or home loan. It was a credit card, so you could pay the minimum balance every month. But paying the minimum balance wasn’t enough to actually pay off the whole thing in 2 years.
Nearly 30%, for the scheme we have access to at my work. 28.99%. That exact number may in fact inform veterans of the industry of exactly who we use for financing.
It’s also how they get you to start using it. Accept the 0% interest loan, now the app is on your phone, now you’re seeing options for lower monthly payments, now you’re thinking about what you could afford with the app as opposed to what you have right now.
I bought an escooter through one of those apps and paid 0% interest, so it worked out for me, but you have to be careful about it.
More demand and more inflation. Then they will charge fee and seller wont be able to get rid of this payment option as most of customers already use it. Then this fee is included in price leading to more inflation. 0% interest rate is cancer on top of consumerism
Huh. A free e-scooter, you say? Don’t mind if I do!
It’s also paid as a fee by the store, which in turn means every customer (incl those not using BNPL) is indirectly paying for it.
There is a small percentage surcharge imposed by whoever is providing the financing, but it’s basically the same amount as what the credit card companies charge per transaction, on the order of 1-2%, so from the store’s perspective it’s the same either way. It’s not quite correct to say that customers who are not financing hot dogs are paying for others who are, but all of the customers financing hot dogs are indeed paying for each other.
On the topic of credit cards, by the way, in some states it is legal for the merchant to pass the processing costs on to the customer and in some cases the shyster bastards actually do it. To my knowledge most or all of the banks providing in store financing or buy-now-pay-later schemes in fact prohibit that practice, so there is at least that.
Also you don’t get cash back from your credit card when you pay this way. Obviously for a $1.50 hotdog not a big deal but it adds up.