Buy now, pay later helped fuel record holiday spending online in 2023, but now that those bills are coming due, consumers aren't sure how they'll pay them.
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?
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?
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?