U.S. consumers are so fucked up, that they put more than $1 billion on buy-now, pay later services during Cyber Monday

Idk, I do them when there is no interest involved. Like my credit card I only do it when I have the money though.

The rewards are there to keep you make them money.

Some one has to pay for the rewards and the multi billion dollar companies usually don't give money away for free without some plan. In the end, the consumer pays for the rewards because they add it on the product price.

I'm glad at least some countries are taking notice.

This is why I used it.

0% apr plus 20% back I mean come on!

Damn, that's a pretty decent deal for a big purchase.

Whhhaaaa is it over??

If I were living paycheque to paycheque

I would just reject consumerism and not buy anything. You very rarely save money by buying things, maybe some tools, or seeds/cuttings for things you can grow to eat.

Capitalism never misses an opportunity to exploit consumers.

No debtors prison but there is a credit score. And that shit is the gateway to paying less for everything when you're borrowing money. Especially for a mortgage on a house so you actually have equity in the property you're living in.

Wrecking your credit score basically gate keeps you from a lot of stuff sadly.

I mean, I know you said /s but just saying fucking up your credit can screw you hard in the hyper capitalist hellscape we live in.

Technically if you took out a bunch of bad loans the government would be bailing out the banks. Like 2008. Let’s ride!

Except many BNPL options are 0% interest rate. I just renovated an apartment with ikea stuff and they offered me 0% interest rate over 1 year - it makes no sense to not take this offer.

Many companies would gladly lose 4% (avg inflation) to guarantee a sale especially when dipping on loans are basically impossible today for the average consumer.

I don’t know if we have enough information. I agree with you that BNPL purchases are typically bad for the consumer, but I don’t necessarily think any to call people greedy in a difficult economy. Sometimes, people end up in shitty situations, trying to keep their life together, even when they can’t afford to.

Was the volume items purchased greater than before or are prices just completely out of control? The article doesn’t indicate that it accounts for inflation. Inflation was about 3% and BNLPL was up 4%.

What about the types of items that were purchased? It doesn’t actually say what types of items were used to BNPL transactions so we don’t know if it was household needs or unnecessary consumption.

It is worse as they don't report when you are paying the loan unlike credit card. They only report that you paid it off. So it just messes with your credit score.

BNPL generally has far less consumer protection than CCs. It's also vastly easier to access BNPL services as they're typically inserted into the payment process online, and don't do a very good job of informing consumers of things like repayment terms and interest charges.

There's definitely a case to be made that they deliberately target those who are less financially aware who are most vulnerable to predatory lenders pushing them into unmanageable debt.

Just another once in a lifetime event.

Funnily enough, there is a case as to why the word consumer so often pops up, especially in capitalist context. The first documented case of consumer was in the Middle Ages, in a French dictionary. It derives its meaning from Consumare, Latin for "use" but in a destructive manner. For example, you'd consume a candle or an apple because you'll use them and then they're gone, they're broken/destroyed. Being a consumer back then was a bad thing because people were so ridiculously poor and naturally could not waste. Now contrast that with the same French dictionary which defines customer as a person who routinely buys from the same merchant.

There's a reason why this is being used so prevalently today. Customer implies agency, a process of thinking and making a choice, while a consumer just consumes. Let me give an example. "We need to check how the consumers will receive it." it implies zero agency on the "consumers" part. Like feeding a toddler. But if I just say "We need to check how the customers will receive it", it again implies agency that we have to do well to satisfy the needs of the customer and not just try feeding a toddler by using dirty tricks.

Just for 'buy now pay later', but yes

They have late fees and can have incredibly high interest if you pay late.

1 in 10 for $30 includes every single man, woman, and child in the United States. In reality there is a much smaller group spending much more money and developing a revolving door of debt where they are chronically in debt for non essential purchases and as soon as one of those payments goes late they will be slapped with a bunch of late fees and interest that will make them miss other payments and get even more late fees and interest until they end up underwater

Klarna got 2.8B in revenue last year and they did it with those “interest free” loans

I need a house though, most people don't have 250k sat around. Of course in a major city multiply that by several times.

Honestly, I am kinda tempted to say "To hell with fiscal responsibility!", and just live like someone with a decent income. That said, I will do the supposedly responsible thing and just keep foreign currency or buy gold. Because I am expecting this scenario to come for the American dollar:

Is this the right tactic to take? Who knows... 🤷‍♂️

It's about one billion pieces of dollars. I'm let someone else handle the rest.

The time scale is the other big difference. A credit card is intended to be paid off at the end of the month and gives you much better fraud protection than a debit card

Products like klarna instead have you pay off a tv over months and offer you no real benefit besides racking up debt

Buying on a credit card doesn't incur interest fees until a month after the purchase so you can pay it off right away.

This is guaranteed to incur fees right out of the gate and cannot be paid back faster than they want.