After racking up thousands of dollars in debt, some borrowers are deleting the apps from their phones to avoid getting prodded to spend more.
Many consumers find buying now and paying later a godsend when cash is tight. Others are wishing they’d paid upfront to avoid pain later.
Tia Whiteside, 27, knew she was spending more than she would have without buy now, pay later services — the popular loans that let borrowers split purchases into installments with little or no interest. Planning a day trip to the beach with her 2-year-old son last year, she spent $800 on Amazon purchases including a tent, new outfits and a high-end sandcastle kit with the BNPL provider Affirm.
Whiteside, a Greenville, South Carolina-based behavioral analyst who treats childhood autism, makes good money; she and her husband bring in about $110,000 per year combined. But the $6,000 in BNPL loans she’d racked up over roughly two years felt frivolous, she said, especially because they’re planning to buy their first home.
“I was just seeing my paycheck continually eaten up,” said Whiteside, “and I was like, ‘Where’s my money going?’”
Many of them have ‘hidden’ fees, annual charges etc that add up to a hefty chunk. Interestingly the credit cards offered to high net worth individuals (rich people) have much lower rates and no hidden fees, even things like automatic overdraft protection and robust identity theft protection not offered to the rest of us.
That’s a fair point. Credit card companies are not our friends, and it’s absolutely in character for them to try and nail us in the fine print.
For my part, I know of my annual fee and the rewards I get more than offset it (though not considerably) but it’s certainly not always so clear cut.
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