Missed Payments, Rising Interest Rates Put 'Buy Now, Pay Later' To the Test (wsj.com) 147
"Buy now, pay later" companies promised a credit revolution that would change the way people pay for things. Rising delinquencies and a slowing economy are clouding that outlook. From a report: Payment plans that allow shoppers to split up the cost of things such as clothing, makeup and home appliances were all the rage last year. The companies behind the plans saw their valuations surge. Scores of retailers rushed to add them at checkout. Block in August announced a roughly $29 billion all-stock deal for Afterpay, one of the biggest companies in the business. But late payments or related losses are piling up for the industry's biggest players -- Affirm, Afterpay and Zip. Their borrowing costs, meanwhile, are rising. Buy-now-pay-later companies sometimes rely on credit lines whose rates rise and fall along with the Federal Reserve's benchmark rate, which has risen 0.75 percentage point so far this year and is poised to go up even more.
Investors, once enamored with the business, are backing away. Affirm went public in January 2021 at $49 a share and rose to more than $170 by November. The stock closed at $28.50 Tuesday. SoftBank-backed Klarna Bank is looking to raise as much as $1 billion in a deal that could value it in the low $30 billion range, far below the roughly $46 billion valuation it achieved last year. The young industry finds itself in a tricky spot at a time when the economy is slowing and, some fear, headed for a recession. Buy-now-pay-later companies boomed when consumers were flush with cash and buying goods at a feverish pace. How they fare in a downturn, when savings evaporate, spending slows and bad debts mount, is untested. To weather the storm, Afterpay and Zip are slowing their new originations.
Investors, once enamored with the business, are backing away. Affirm went public in January 2021 at $49 a share and rose to more than $170 by November. The stock closed at $28.50 Tuesday. SoftBank-backed Klarna Bank is looking to raise as much as $1 billion in a deal that could value it in the low $30 billion range, far below the roughly $46 billion valuation it achieved last year. The young industry finds itself in a tricky spot at a time when the economy is slowing and, some fear, headed for a recession. Buy-now-pay-later companies boomed when consumers were flush with cash and buying goods at a feverish pace. How they fare in a downturn, when savings evaporate, spending slows and bad debts mount, is untested. To weather the storm, Afterpay and Zip are slowing their new originations.
Good, I hope they all implode (Score:3)
Not only are these companies generally predatory but if they fail then their assets will go on the market at fire sale rates, and maybe I can pick up a new monitor :D
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I’m so tired of this worthless argument. How are they predatory? Users know exactly what they are doing? Can we stop pretending that nobody has agency and is in control of their own actions? This is such a “not my fault” Gen Me mentality. This why you guys live with your parents until you are 30 or older.
Re:Good, I hope they all implode (Score:5, Insightful)
Why can't you both be right? People need to learn responsibility and the people running these outfits are usurious scum.
Huzzah, common ground is achieved!
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How are they scum? Is this the same argument as “It’s McDonald’s fault for making me fat. The smell of the fries was so good I couldn’t resist. It’s not my fault, I had no control!”
Re:Good, I hope they all implode (Score:4, Insightful)
They are predatory scum. Payday loans aren't optional for a lot of poor people. They get one unexpected expense they can't cover, and they have no options but to take out a predatory loan. It's that or be out on the street, or without a car they need for work, or without medicine they need to live.
We have tried to pass laws to protect people from these con artists, but our current Republican and Democratic parties only pass legislation that favors the rich.
Don't blame the poor. Blame the rich for setting up a system that depends on the poor using credit, rather than paying them a fair wage.
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SOME democrats want that. But the majority want whatever their corporate donors want. Republicans, on the other hand, want to overthrow democracy itself and implement a religious ethnostate. So no, I am not trying to say they are the same. One party is merely corrupt, while the other is incorrigibly evil.
The democrats have shown they do, in fact know how to fight tooth and nail to get things done. Like making sure Bernie Sanders never gets a shot at being president. Yes I am still bitter. But I still vote D
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There is no such thing as "Democratic Socialism". That's a misnomer you can see on full display by looking to the "Democratic People's Republic of Korea", yet AOC proudly declares herself to be in that same camp.
So, that's two elected Democrat legislators who
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Complete and utter horseshit. You're using the "NSDAP says they're socialists, therefore they are!" argument. It's dishonest as hell, from both the organization calling themselves "democratic" or "republic" and you arguing that their names aren't a complete fabrication of what they really are.
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Is it possible that you are confusing demonocracy (people ruling over others) with freedom (people ruling over themselves)?
Common mistake, made by a lot of well-meaning people, but very dangerous, because it's been known since classical antiquity that demonocracy basically devolves into the powerful manipulating the people into voting into whatever the powerful want, while thinking all along it was their idea.
If you said socialism is utterly, and inherently, incompatible with freedom then I'd agree.
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Payday loans aren't optional for a lot of poor people. They get one unexpected expense they can't cover, and they have no options but to take out a predatory loan.
a) these aren't payday loans.
b) even if they were that doesn't make them scum. They provide a service people want / need. Are you expecting someone to provide something for free? Consider looking to charities rather than financial services.
There are scummy dealers out there to be sure. Some are worse than loan sharks. But simply lending money to (as you put it) people who needed it due to an unexpected expense isn't scummy.
Blame the rich for setting up a system that depends on the poor using credit
I blame neither. I blame the morons who think "social security" is some kind of swear
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So the payday loan people are evil for providing them the option that keeps them "off the street, without a car they need for work, or without medicine they need to live"?
I'm trying to understand your argument.
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Because they're punching down, and the people they're punching are only on the first couple of rungs on the ladder. They need a hand up, not to be milked. Everyone who doesn't prey on the weakest among us suffers when it happens, because they are more likely to be successful if they aren't taken advantage of, and then they are likely to make a larger contribution to the whole, and that will help everyone right up until they get rich enough to stop paying taxes. But that's another argument, and not a reason
Re: Good, I hope they all implode (Score:3)
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You're probably right, sadly, but I'd like to know for sure before making claims, and what I can see of the article doesn't say.
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Generally speaking, all of the BNPL outfits charge 0% interest. That's not usury, it's a service to the public, right?
Well, no. Obviously, the business model "here's some free money, no credit check required" isn't a business model at all, and a negative ROI is certainly not worth a valuation of $46,000,000,000.00. The value proposition to investors is lending to people who will pay late, thus incurring high fees, which is the same business model as payday loans.
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Or what used to be commonly called "lay-away"?
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The interest rates are a lot lower (or sometimes there is no interest) on these new systems. The business model is based on some percentage of the buyers missing a payment and then sticking them with punitive late fees. That's how the world of "no interest for 24 months" promotions works. Basically, they lose a little bit of money on most people so that they can really stick it to the 5-10% of people who forget a payment.
I guess the problem is that if the 5-10% of people don't just forget a payment, but
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Ok, thank you for the clarifications!!
I've long been of the mind, that I don't buy an
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It is the opposite of lay-away. With lay-away, you pay a deposit and the seller holds the product for you. When you pay the full amount, you get the product. This does not create debt - if you fail to make the payments you just don't get the product. Depending on the terms, you may forfeit none, some or all of the money you have already paid, but you don't owe MORE money as a result of being unable to pay.
Re: Good, I hope they all implode (Score:2)
Because they're taking advantage (Score:5, Interesting)
So you're 18, parents kick you out because they didn't want to have you in the 1st place but the condom broke and the women couldn't afford the pill (none of that socialized medicine for us, we're 'Merican) and suddenly you need a table and some chairs for that studio apartment you're renting for 70% of your monthly pay (there's those declining wages again). Parents are no help, they kicked you out. Goodwill is useless, they're a for profit company after all. And even if you could buy something how would you get it home?
So you go to one of these dodgy places and a slick salesmen talks you into it. Sure, the stuff falls apart before the last payment's made, but hey, I got mine, fuck you.
That's how they're being taken advantage of. And the best part? they're trying to Unionize for better pay and getting blocked by Baby Boomers and right wing Gen Xers putting anti-Union psychos in charge. We're baking Gen M & Z into a corner. In America. In a country that heavily encourages people to solve their problems with violence.
Buckle up, it's gonna be a bumpy ride. Maybe you'll kill the 1st wave with your AR-15. By the 5th or 6th it's gonna stop being fun.
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I mean Christ, it's like none of us remember what happened to the Soviet Union...
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I mean Christ, it's like none of us remember what happened to the Soviet Union...
It pulled an AT&T and got the old band back together?
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Very well put.
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Minimum wage is 0, not whatever gov't sets it to. That is the real minimum wage, it is 0 dollars and 0 cents.
There shouldn't be any legislation stating that work cannot be done for 1cent/day or 1$/hour or whatever. Of-course governments shouldn't be in the business of printing money, handing out services, like education, medical care, housing, food, energy, entertainment, communications, transportation, child care or anything else at all. Government isn't there to hand out services or money to people, if
We're baking Gen M & Z into a corner. (Score:2)
Is that like Soylent Green but with baked goods?
Sorry, could not resist; That typo made me giggle :)
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Dude, you were nailing it up until:
they're trying to Unionize for better pay and getting blocked by Baby Boomers and right wing Gen Xers putting anti-Union psychos in charge
That is when I realized you are either a useful idiot or you are actively working against fixing things.
It is people who "have theirs" that you are fighting against, but they are not the cause of your/our misery. So you waste your energy fighting essentially "internally" while "they" get away with looting an entire society.
When the time comes, you will be throwing the wrong people against the wall while the people who should have been up against the wall will move on to a
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They are predatory because they know their customers do not know what they're doing. Intelligence is on a bell curve and 15% of all people are in a category called "borderline intellectual functioning" or worse, and that isn't going to change. Thinking that all people should be able to see that someone is trying to take advantage of them, and that trying to take advantage is therefore OK, is a morally bankrupt attitude towards other people. We need to make laws to protect the weak because the strong don't n
Re:Good, I hope they all implode (Score:5, Insightful)
How about this: They are predatory because they exist to make money off people who literally don't have any to begin with.
Worse, these companies intentionally prey on people who either don't know better or don't have other options. They hide behind complex contracts that virtually *no one* reads much less understands without a relevant law degree. They do this 100% on purpose knowing the vast majority of their clients - who, again, have no money to begin with - also have no means to fight them or negotiate with any kind of parity.
I'm /not/ saying people should be stupid with their money and then just forgiven but IMO that's a different and largely separate conversation. Debating someone's "need" to purchase is tangential to the point of irrelevance.
These companies should not be permitted to exist. They literally profit by making the already poor even more poor.
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How are they predatory?
I don't know much about the specific companies that this article is about, but there's a whole Wikipedia article about the concept of predatory lending [wikipedia.org] if you're interested in learning more about it.
It shouldn't be that strange a concept; loan sharks and usury have been illegal in many (most?) cultures for a very long time. I don't find the suggestion that these particular companies are predatory to be particularly far-fetched.
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Predatory organizations target the poor, uneducated, mentally disabled, and/or physically disabled. Usually some combination of those and in varying degrees. Those people are literally unable to understand, comprehend, and/or deal with the complexities of financial management but are tossed into the same world as those who can. They are the vulnerable of society and they are preyed upon by those without ethics, morality, and/or legality. Any legal punishments are usually just a slap on the wrist and the
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I’m so tired of this worthless argument. How are they predatory? Users know exactly what they are doing? Can we stop pretending that nobody has agency and is in control of their own actions? This is such a “not my fault” Gen Me mentality. This why you guys live with your parents until you are 30 or older.
BNLP is predatory in the same way gambling and payday loans are predatory. They all exploits human weakness for profit.
Human, including adults, is not a rational machine, we all have human weaknesses. BNLP offers instant gratification at the cost of long term suffering, most humans cannot correctly assess such a tradeoff*, and many would choose instant gratification even though rationally the long term suffering costs them much more overall.
BNLP induce people to buy things they should not have bought at t
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If I were to agree with the term "predatory", I would apply it a little differently.
It's not that they prey on the consumer, in terms of taking advantage of the consumer's ignorance. Instead, I'd argue that they take advantage of the consumer's lack-of-borrowing power compared to their own. And I think that's exactly what this article winds up describing by accident.
Last year, interest rates were very very low. So these companies could easily borrow money at 2% annual interest. In quantity, very close t
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Living on the other side of the pond I'm not familiar with the companies from TFA. But generally when entering into a contract with a company (be that phone company, ISP, bank, insurance, loan, leasing, whatever ....) the odds are stacked against the individual. The contract is full of legalese that was crafted by a well paid team of lawyers who studied the law for years and have years of experience under the belt. It is not realistic to expect that the individual has matching expertise and is also not rea
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And as an indication of how much they expect you to understand what you're signing, the last time I opened a bank account the banker passed me 10 pages of contract to sign and was visibly annoyed when I started reading it. It's taken for granted that you sign without reading, but somehow the courts assume that you understood and accepted all of the fine detail anyway.
Re: Good, I hope they all implode (Score:2)
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General rules with money only major assets should be allowed to have a loan against it i.e. House/property, cars should have minimal loans i.e. don't borrow to buy a sports car only for one that will get you to and from work if absolutely necessary look at all options and loans, never borrow for wants.
There are many businesses that are predatory sadly there are many stupid people to let those busine
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They prey on the weakest in society
No, they prey on the stupidest in society.
... well ... it sucks to be you.
Managing your money is not rocket surgery. If you are too stupid to understand that you shouldn't borrow money (that you can't afford to pay back) so that you can buy stupid shit (that you don't really need)
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At this point, the rich have stolen so much money from the working class and poor, the economy would collapse without debt spending. Don't blame the poor. They have no other options. This is the fault of those who control things, not the fault of the people just trying to survive.
I mean sure, if we are talking about people who are making six figures but still in debt, go ahead and blame them. But don't blame the poor for being poor and doing what poor people have to do to survive.
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I’m confused how rich people can “steal” money from people who by definition don’t have any.
BNPL services are used primarily to buy luxury goods and “wants” instead of “needs”. It’s not a rich person’s fault that a poor person uses Affinity to buy things they can’t afford now and certainly won’t be able to afford later.
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Jesus Christ, poor people have money and there are billions of them. If a rich fuck can find a way to steal pennies from a billion poor people, he's gonna make bank. Being poor means you have to pay more for things because you have fewer options and less time to shop around. So it's not hard for the rich to steal from the poor. I'm willing to bet you knew that already and were just trying to score a cheap rhetorical point.
But the main point is, many used to be middle class, not poor. https://www.pewresearch [pewresearch.org]
Re: Good, I hope they all implode (Score:2)
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Iâ(TM)m confused how rich people can âoestealâ money from people who by definition donâ(TM)t have any.
One literal way they can do it is by owning a bank, and processing withdrawals immediately while delaying deposits for days for "verification". Then this causes checks to bounce even though balances were kept. If you don't look at your bank statements, which is dumb but you know you didn't do anything wrong, right? This could easily cascade into very large amounts of fees for being broke after they robbed you into destitution. Several banks were successfully sued for this behavior. Another way is by opening
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At this point, the rich have stolen so much money from the working class and poor, the economy would collapse without debt spending.
The stock market probably would; I'm not so sure about the rest of the economy.
Don't blame the poor. They have no other options. This is the fault of those who control things, not the fault of the people just trying to survive.
I've known people who make *good* money and stay constantly in debt, living month-to-month, too. It's not a poverty problem. It's a self-control problem. Want a jaw-dropping demonstration of this? 70% of lottery winners are broke again within five years.
People don't budget, because most of them never learned how to budget. If they realized that paying for a TV at a rent-to-own shop over 18 months would mean paying up to 2.5x
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So these "buy now, pay later" services are just baffling. They charge *no* APR
BNPL take a cut from the retailers. This is typically much higher than credit card fees, presumably driving up the prices of goods and services in general as these companies skim a % from the economy. I would love to see a law that forced retailers to add the processing costs to the final price in the interests of market transparency.
What baffles me is how much more attractive BNPL is to the younger generation compared to credit cards. They are functionally the same except with a cooler app (that you need).
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How is someone supposed to get rich by stealing from people who have nothing?
By stealing tiny amounts from a large number of them. Steal a dollar from a million people... well you can do the math.
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At this point, the rich have stolen so much money from the working class and poor, the economy would collapse without debt spending. Don't blame the poor. They have no other options. This is the fault of those who control things, not the fault of the people just trying to survive.
I mean sure, if we are talking about people who are making six figures but still in debt, go ahead and blame them. But don't blame the poor for being poor and doing what poor people have to do to survive.
I come from pretty impressive poverty. Your assertion that there are no options for the poor is simply incorrect. It is a sweeping judgement that places all of poor people in one big bucket.
There are multiple reasons why a person might be living in poverty:
Physical limitations
Mental limitations
Those are some things that are hard to overcome. Then there is:
Lack of drive
Poor judgement.
While my origin story is being born into poverty, I was blessed with an analytical mind and a lot of drive. The lack
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Lack of drive is just another way to say that society has failed to give meaning to a person's life. Tell me, if everyone broke out of poverty, what would the world look like? Is it really something everyone could do? What would happen to the low paying jobs? Who would do the shitty but necessary work?
You are saying that people should apply individual solutions to systemic problems but you give no analysis of how that would work at scale. If it won't work at scale, you are saying some people deserve to have
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Thinking comes from society. Raised by wolves, you would not think. Does a slave have drive? How could they, every effort only enriches their master. Drive is created by the confluence of society, and heredity. Where else would it come from? Individual merit that springs fully grown from nothingness? No such thing, sorry.
Society absolutely controls thinking. For example, the Japanese have no word for blue. Just shades of green. No caveman could do calculus. Your thoughts have to come from some place outside
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Meaning only comes from interactions between people. Society is nothing more than interactions between people. Meaning only comes from society. If you were raised in isolation, without society, you wouldn't even have language. Every thought you ever had was put there by the outside world, mostly by other people. So even if you were by yourself, all the meaning you have would couched in a language society gave you. No man is an island.
Your idea of why society was created is very authoritarian, and a bit cond
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That's a fanciful imagination you have there. Must be nice to live in your imaginary world, where the poor all have sports cars and iphones, instead of living in a world where retirees can't pay for both rent and medicine without taking out loans.
Re: I call utter fucking bullshit (Score:2)
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That's just corporate propaganda, telling you to not feel bad that the wealthy are picking our pockets because it is really the poors being irresponsible. Bullshit. It's the wealthy, stealing our money.
Re:I call utter fucking bullshit (Score:4, Insightful)
There's no reason someone making 28k/yr should have an iphone, and a 35k car.
Saying someone shouldn't have a smartphone because they're poor is just being an elitist douche. A brand new iPhone SE at Metro by T-Mobile is presently $100. That's about two tanks of gas for my economy car, at today's prices.
Which brings us to vehicles... Yes, I've seen plenty of poor people driving around in vehicles that were $35k+ when they were new. Without knowing the story behind it, you're just assuming they're the original owner, and that it's not something they bought cheap because the previous owner(s) drove it to the moon and back.
Most of the people who are flying by the seat of their credit score aren't poor. You won't get approved for a $35k+ car loan on a poverty level income. It's the folks who make up what's left of the middle class who are financing cars they can't really afford, overbidding against each other on houses they can't really afford, and generally making everything expensive as all get out for those of us who are just trying to scrape by.
Re: I call utter fucking bullshit (Score:2)
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The point is still mostly valid. Live within your means. When I left the military in 95, I was working through temp agencies. Nothing was consistent. I learned to get buy eating those $0.99 whoppers. No cheese.
I used to buy sliced cheese at the store and bring a slice with me for my Jumbo Jacks. It saved me $0.40 a sandwich which quickly paid for the pack of cheese and a Jumbo Jack after a few days.
Was there times id swipe extra TP from a gas station to get by? Yea. But I still refused to go in debt. For whatever reason its the current youth falling victim to this predatory practice.
I'd try my best to time those needs to the work bathrooms :)
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A very large amount of money is spent convincing people not to do this, its called advertising. Also you shouldn't borrow money even if you can afford it unless that asset you are purchasing will make you more money than the interest paid. My definition of afford is I have the money in the bank + savings for a rainy day.
Borrowing puts you in a situation that if something goes wrong you are less able deal with it since instead of savings you have financial obligations to meet.
People do mental gymnastics to j
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People do mental gymnastics to justify why they need that, car, phone, ... usually its really simple if you don't have the cash don't buy it.
Actually, it's not so simple. Even for poor people, time is money. In fact even more so then for wealthy people as they could be working longer hours. So if the bus costs $150 a month, plus you could be working extra hours to make another $350 if you weren't on the bus for so long, then a car payment of $250 plus $200 in gas and maintenance each month could make sound economic sense. Buying something on credit makes sense if it is a productive asset and you think the chances of not being able to make that $
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They prey on the weakest in society
No, they prey on the stupidest in society.
Managing your money is not rocket surgery. If you are too stupid to understand that you shouldn't borrow money (that you can't afford to pay back) so that you can buy stupid shit (that you don't really need) ... well ... it sucks to be you.
Yah know, some people are actually pretty stupid. Others are just uneducated. Some just don't understand/care/worry about the consequences.
With that said I offer three points:
1) it's disgusting that so many people are paid so little that services like this exist
2) it's even more disgusting that these companies are profiting of people who literally don't have money to buy things they need or want
3) BNPL purchases are certainly not all "stupid shit you don't need" - some, yes, but see #1 and #2
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Literally everybody doesn't have money to buy things they want. Why are we elevating wants as something important?
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Why are we elevating wants as something important?
Demonstration of social status is the main reason, I think. Putting on the appearance of prosperity is quite important to self esteem, according to today's moral values. People who are not concerned about that are generally considered freaks, dropouts, good for nothing.
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They prey on the weakest in society
No, they prey on the stupidest in society.
Managing your money is not rocket surgery. If you are too stupid to understand that you shouldn't borrow money (that you can't afford to pay back) so that you can buy stupid shit (that you don't really need) ... well ... it sucks to be you.
And here we have the basic conundrum. While it sounds like a great idea to allow unfettered monetary access to all, there are a lot of stupid people out there.
So do we allow the stupid to exercise their stupidity unfettered?
If we take the subprime loan crisis in the early oughts as an example, it was directed right at the stupid. People buying houses that fourth grade math could show was not a possible mortgage solution. People using "creative" financing to put themselves further into debt in order to b
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“Predatory” is the word used to deflect blame and prevent someone from taking responsibility for their own actions. I see it everywhere now. Nobody appears to have any agency at all, they are just forced from one bad decision to the next. It’s like life is one of those automated walkways at the airport. You just stand there and have no control over anything in your life as you move along.
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My main concern is that many of these schemes are knowingly mis-sold with outright misleading messaging and high-pressure sales tactics, because they are so profitable to run that way. In the
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âoePredatoryâ is the word used to deflect blame and prevent someone from taking responsibility for their own actions.
No sir, "predatory" is assigning blame to someone who is, by their own actions, behaving like a predator.
Nobody appears to have any agency at all, they are just forced from one bad decision to the next.
Sometimes people are literally forced, more often they are simply coerced. They are duped by literally fraudulent advertising, which outright states things which are false for profit, and by effectively fraudulent advertising, which tricks people into believing things which are false with deceptive language. I don't approve of penalties for using tits to sell ice cream or whatever, you have to have some
Again? (Score:3, Insightful)
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its almost like the previous generation failed
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Well you can't say it's generational when the same but now pay later companies that served your grandparents are still kicking.
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your responsibility as a parent is to pass the wisdom and hardships you learn during your life to your children, if they fall for the same traps, you failed.
Yes, again (Score:2)
History will be repeated until we finally learn from it.
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You say that as if it was a bad thing.
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As Georg Hegel said: âoeThe only thing that we learn from history is that we learn nothing from history."
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Depends (Score:2)
It depends, though.
I know someone who was going through a tough financial patch, and bought a refrigerator on credit as his refrigerator died and he didn't have the liquid cash to buy a new one. A refrigerator is pretty important, especially if you are hard up for cash and need to cook at home a lot. He paid it all off on time and didn't incur any penalties, and is doing fine financially now.
That's not the problem, of course. The problem is someone remodeling a whole kitchen on credit because they really re
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The problem is that they should of bought a refrigerator second hand much cheaper, but you can't because people don't lend you money for that as easily as they will a new fridge. I have seen this several times where people by the expensive item because of the ease of getting credit. There are ethical lenders(if people even know about them) but you have to apply it takes time, it is far easier to go into a shop and them to give you credit immediately.
Delta (Score:2)
The difference in price between a used and new cheap refrigerator at the time was only a couple of hundred dollars. If it was half the price it would have been worth it. He got a fantastic deal (I think at Best Buy) on a cheapo over/under fridge/freezer and got free delivery thrown in as well.
But yeah, you're right, he wouldn't have been able to afford either one all in one go. Credit is great when used in a pinch. It's not great to live beyond your means.
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It's as if every generation needs to learn the same lessons again and again. Taking on debt to increase your earning potential is one thing, but taking on debt to buy consumer goods? Never a good idea. It leads to this.
How many generations has Fingerhut served? It's continuous.
The end... For now... (Score:2)
result of monthly payments for clothing and makeup (Score:2)
PikachuFace.jpg
an unhealthy society (Score:2)
The appearance of financing for everything from pizzas to $5 trinkets on Amazon should be a big warning sign to everyone that something is deeply wrong with not only our financial system but our culture.
"Revolutionize"? This scam is _old_! (Score:2)
It basically is to get people more money to spend that they can afford, get them into debt that way and get rich of the more-or-less excessive interest. The only way this can fail is if it gets outlawed or if those doing this despicable thing get too greedy.
Thanks Mom and Dad (Score:4, Interesting)
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Dangerous products (Score:2)
Consumer debt + inflation = bankruptcy (Score:2)
Going into a period of high inflation, which one may equate with reduced income for most people, is a financial disaster for people who are barely getting by, and borrowed up to the hilt. I know this, because a few years ago, I lost my income while having bank and credit card debts, and trying to service those on welfare benefits is near impossible. I am pretty sure poverty will be considerably worse as a result of so much consumer debt. If you go late on servicing buy-now-pay-later, or payday loans, the de
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> That is, corporations are sponging off the state.
And that is due to all the laws that the rich have bought.
"Privatise the profits, socialise the debts".
Same as it ever was...
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Eh... this doesn't seem like a consumer problem, though, right? Buy now, pay later... but if they fail to pay later they still have the thing they bought, at the expense of a worse credit score. No repossession is happening here, just write-off. So who's "Can't afford it? Don't buy it" really advising?
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Nope, I feel the same way about it. I can't buy something online anymore without a big button next to the checkout advertising "Pay for this over 3 weeks with an easy weekly payment of $xx.xx!"
It's everywhere, from dominos pizza to small sub-$10 trinkets.
think about that madness. people financing a fucking pizza.
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Is it just me or is "buy now pay later" the equivalent of sub-prime loans for consumer credit instead of houses?
It's similar, but no one is bundling these loans into securities and giving them a rating that they KNOW is bullshit, but don't care about as long as they get sold.