Reads like thinly veiled advertising for the services offered by the website this article comes from. I doubt it’s anywhere close to a representative sample.
If you think something should be removed, report it.
If you just make a comment asking about some “troublesome priest” of a post and why mods haven’t removed it…
A lot of people, often without reading the article, will just report it, even days/weeks later.
Personally, I think it’s fine. I’m not sure why people would think this was an advertisement for a product that isnt even named…
Did you think when the article said the websites name that it was the name of a business that does that?
Anyways, it’s bad form to leave comments like you just did, and I felt actually explaining why you should just report stuff your self would be more beneficial than just removing your comment
Side note:
A good bit of modern public propaganda is getting multiple people to all report at once.
I highly doubt that’s what happening here, they don’t just leave a public comment. Just a thing that’s relevant
What services by the way?
I tried looking and it seems the company that owns the website is basically an Ad company that got bought out by a different SEO and Ad company that’s owned by Matt Buchanan and Jesse Biter who originally focused on car sales.
Seems it’s more just an in industry plant site meant to just be a place for people who like to make money to talk about money things that can have articles they can point to, to back their statements but that’s it.
“Pay later plans”? Other than credit cards, WTF are you talking about?
Yeah, I have a credit card that pays me back 5% cash on grocery store purchases. It would be stupid NOT to use it, then I pay the card off every pay day.
Groceries + free money.
They’re talking about installment plans through your credit card. You pay a fee to split a charge into monthly installments, usually of your choosing. By paying the monthly installment and the rest of your balance from other charges, you can avoid interest kicking in, even while you owe the full amount. The fee is usually a % of the purchase, like 3% or 1% per month or something.
It can make sense on a large one-time purchase, but it’s weird to do it for frequent purchases like groceries.
My last trip to the grocery store was $600.
I’d consider that a large purchase.
I agree it is, but if you spend that amount regularly, it’d be better to try to reduce your budget, painful as it may be, than to snowball toward ever-increasing payment obligations that match or surpass your monthly total for grocery trips anyway.
These articles make it seem like it’s a routine. If it’s for one-time temporary relief, then that’s another thing.
How many people for how long does that feed? Unless you want to starve on ramen noodles every day or eat only rice, I too don’t see how you’re getting away with less than $100/week per person.
I can choose with my credit card to designate a purchase over 100 bucks as a pay over time purchase. I don’t use it for anything less than 4 digits, but this year we got hammered by 4 4-digit car repairs, a 4-digit tree removal, two surgeries for our dog, and a few other unexpected big expenses. I used it for the car repairs and the dog surgeries because there was a promotion where there was no fee, it just raises the minimum monthly payment, and brought the interest down. I didn’t have the cash to pay that many things off at once so I’m using to to pay them down that way at a lower rate.
But you are absolutely right, using pay later plans for small frequent purchases is not great. They might not have a choice though.
No, but as someone who, you know, buys groceries on the regular, I’ve never seen the sort of payment plan they’re talking about.
Yeah, my Amazon card has that option, so does PayPal, but I haven’t seen a grocery store that takes PayPal.
Aldi in the US always gives me the option at checkout to pay later, I’ve never explored it to find out the fine print
As someone who trashed my credit the moment I turned 18, this whole article is bizarre to me. I’m in my 30s now and I still have to pay for (nearly) everything, up front, in full (even cars). I can only use private landlords because no apartment community will approve me. If I can’t afford something, I can’t buy it. Amazon is the only entity that trusts me with a payment plan, because they’re the only ones who don’t check your credit score. As long as you pay on time, they don’t care; so I always have. That’s the only reason why I could afford a TV.
I ended up ranting a bit so feel free to ignore this comment 🫣
It’s so shitty too because even if you spent years or even decades paying your bills on time, if you hit a few hard months you are completely fucked. None of these companies, not the government, not even the community gives a shit. Everyone just tells you to apply for food stamps, go to a food bank, apply for section 8, etc etc, without realizing that (at least where I am) they actively vote for and support policies that prevent most people from accessing those things. Not to mention food banks have so much moldy shit it’s not worth standing in line for 5+ hours to get nothing edible and then have to go to a different place next week because god forbid you go to the same food bank twice in a month. And then section 8… So many places their waitlists are closed for 10-20 years! If you get accepted during that time you still have to apply, find a participating landlord, and jump through 5,000 hoops before you can even plan to move in somewhere. And don’t get me started on healthcare!
My ex destroyed my credit back in 2009. My credit score was in the mid 500s. Fortunately, even though it took a decade, I was able to recover my credit and get it back into the 800s.
Yeah, I have a credit card that pays me back 5% cash on grocery store purchases. It would be stupid NOT to use it
Groceries + free money.
I’m reading this as a European and have questions… We all know that there is non free money. So, what’s the business model? Making you use the card more by giving you “free” money and making the shops pay more to use the payment service, so that the shops then increase the prices, so that you pay the same as before (considering increased prices and cashback), but are now using the payment system a lot more?
Few tricks.
- Card services actually get a small fee per transaction from the retailer so they just get paid every time you use their card which can add up.
- If you fail to pay off the balance for any reason they can charge generally a 20%+ compounding interest that for most people is probably closer to 27-30% and quickly replaces the minimal cash back.
- Spending habits and ability to sell the data to other card/loan providers and advertisers can help generate additional revenue. Think maybe you consider them trustworthy and they offer a car loan for $30,000 and you take it happily without looking around to find out they have a much higher interest rate on it and they get an extra couple grand from you.
making the shops pay more to use the payment service, so that the shops then increase the prices, so that you pay the same as before
Just nitpicking because I enjoy these thoughts:
When the shop increases prices, it has to do it for all the customers, including the ones without credit card. So a part of the cost is offloaded to other types of customers. While credit card customers should see a slight increase in price, it should not be as much as they saved previously. So still a net win for them, at the cost of others.
As others pointed out, the real scheme is probably entirely different.
A lot of smaller businesses charge you extra for using the credit card or something similar.
The bigger businesses don’t do that.
Klarna etc. It’s like a credit card but for people who aren’t allowed credit cards, and it doesn’t show up on your credit reports.
Which is a terrible idea. Lending limits are so you don’t get in over your head, they’re not some scam to keep poor people poor. Poor people are already poor. Corporations would cheerfully lend to you until you can pay no more, and then sell you for parts.
There’s two forms.
-
Some banks offer to split payments on debit purchases after you make the purchase.
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Some stores (mostly online) offer it at checkout.
There’s no credit checks, and it’s easy for the buyer to not realize what’s happening.
Every single time you do it, a 3rd party company opens a line of credit for it.
It’s like getting a new credit card every time it’s used. Which demolishes peoples credit before they realize what’s going on.
But there’s rarely interest if paid on time, so people just don’t understand the damage they’re doing.
pays me 5% cashback
“I pay 5% extra on my groceries so some billionaire can hand it back to me later and tell me to be grateful for it”
Lol
We are talking about businesses, right? They want to maximize profits, not giving money away for free… One dollar given away for free is one dollar less for the share holders. And for them, that’s pretty much the worst case.
The credit card company gives you 5% money.
Now, the credit card company has a problem. It loses money.
The credit card company has an idea: Why not making the real customer (the shop) pay more? Prices for shops to use the payment method rise now.
Now, the shop has a problem. It’s losing money and they think: What can we do? They rise the prices of the items they are selling. And who pays the higher prices in the end? You. And you think, you made a good deal.
I had to deal with food insecurity when I was a young adult. This was around the turn of century. More than once I wrote checks I could not cover, hoping to get cash in the bank before it cleared. And I had to eat overdraft fees I obviously couldn’t afford as a result.
This isn’t so different in that not having enough money ends up costing more. And with wage disparity and food costs being what they are now, it’s easy to believe that percentage, unfortunately.
I see this so much from my coworkers. I could never. I’d rather do without or just steal if I really need something. Credit like that is a trap. I learned that from growing up poor. I’m 36 and debt free and I’m not going back. I’m not buying every day things on credit. I can wait a few paychecks if I need to.
it’s scary. I work in IT and many gen Z kids leave their personal financial stuff on work computers…
the spending/debt they are in is nuts… and it’s stupid stupid debt. one kid had $10,000 in credit card debt over 6 months of spending and was making like $100 payments on $1000s per month in spending. the spend like they make $250K a year even though they make 40K. he’s probably 23-25.
anything that’s on your work computer is company property.
it’s my job to look at anything on company computers.
Jesus . Did nobody ever teach the kids, if you can’t afford it, do without? (Not counting necessities of course). Like I thought the keeping up with appearances thing wasn’t that big, but I’m starting to see that it’s very real. Like the idea of debt terrifies me.
No. They are taught that you can’t do without and you should do whatever you can do to get it. Which means take on massive debt and worry about it later. YOLO
That’s insane.
Nah just uneducated and over marketed to. They literally don’t know how to shop and think groceries is microwave mac n cheese and “hearty” canned chili
This guy thinks he understands today’s issues, you guys! It’s the young people’s fault, he says!
It’s not people’s fault, but it is their responsibility.
They are not to blame, but they must handle what has been passed on to them. It has always been thus.
Deciding “it’s not your problem” and choosing to blame others will simply make the problem last longer.
The fix starts with you. In my life, it started with me.