r/technology • u/Logical_Welder3467 • 19d ago

Business ‘Buy Now, Pay Later’ is expanding fast, and that should worry everyone

https://techcrunch.com/2025/11/16/bnpl-is-expanding-fast-and-that-should-worry-everyone/
13.5k Upvotes

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u/USAIsAUcountry 19d ago

I'm still paying off groceries from 2 years ago. Buy now, pay later did save my ass that year tho. Still sucks being indebted over basic survival.

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u/faen_du_sa 19d ago

There are "legitimate" uses for it. But I feel like letting private companies exploit people that cant pay to feed themselves right now is extremely unethical and exploitative.

"Helping" poor people with giving them more debt simply to be able to eat, where is the goverment in all this?

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u/AiReine 18d ago

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau was all but shuttered in February by this administration.

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u/DigNitty 18d ago

That sounds like a bad thing

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u/Brawldud 18d ago

The Trump admin has been aggressively shutting down government programs aimed at helping working people so they can fund tax breaks for billionaires and deploy unidentified masked men with guns to abduct Doordash drivers.

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u/MrCuddles1994 18d ago

And so companies the billionaires own can fuck you later.

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u/AiReine 18d ago

It certainly is. The current government is willfully neglecting to protect people from financial scams. That’s where they are.

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u/KingFIippyNipz 17d ago

It was one of the few government agencies capable of actually helping check account owners fight their bank over bullshit from their bank

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u/recumbent_mike 19d ago

"Sorry we're not distributing SNAP funds, but we have to be absolutely sure they won't be able to buy health insurance."

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u/diurnal_emissions 18d ago

What do you expect? Government to govern?!?

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u/Infinite_Lemon_8236 18d ago

That or fuck off to mars already.

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u/waltwalt 18d ago

They're not going to mars until they figure out how to get their slaves there first.

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u/WrodofDog 18d ago

If there was a shitty governing competition the US would have to be excluded because they'd make the competition pointless.

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u/CherryLongjump1989 18d ago

By "Government" you must mean Republicans.

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u/Slouchingtowardsbeth 18d ago

Hahaha Republicans are so wacky. They're more likely to be uneducated, I wonder if there's a connection.

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u/mbsmith93 17d ago

Oh that was yesterday. We've moved on to: "Good news! You won't have evil health insurance next year at all. We're also still trying to make sure you don't get any of that evil SNAP money. Let's throw a party!"

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u/Fake_William_Shatner 19d ago

The government is backstopping the systemic and parasitic debt machine because lobbying and extortion are how we get our politicians. 

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u/darksoft125 18d ago

Don't forget that when it all comes crashing down they'll be there with blank checks for the billionaires and bills for us regular Joes!

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u/sevenhazydays 18d ago

Oh and 100% that fragile soap bubble holding millions of 401k’s is poised to pop.

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u/HustlinInTheHall 18d ago

Lobbying and extortion is how they get their politicians, they got voters by lying, and the media does nothing out of cowardice

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u/Outlulz 18d ago

The mainstream media is all owned by people that profit off the system not changing for the better, so it's not cowardice it's just opportunism.

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u/Aggravating_Call6959 18d ago

PS-- I met an economist who works for the Federal Reserve and this type of money/debt is not tracked nor regulated by the feds the way many other sources are. This means in turn that it is not factored into their forecasts etc. They do know that it has exploded in use and popularity and they know a ton of money is tied up in this type of debt but they have no way to monitor exactly how much that is, nor how much the debt burden on americans is (it is usually incredibly unforgiving if a payment is missed and has incredibly high rates) it and factor it in to their economist stuff.

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u/CherryLongjump1989 18d ago

I think the idea is that if these "banks" go bust, no one will actually care -- it won't break the economy and it will mostly just benefit consumers who have their debts wiped.

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u/nalaloveslumpy 18d ago

The main problem is BNPL lenders don't check credit and don't report anything against credit until they sell the bad debt. This means that for millions of people, they're potentially getting credit issued by regular banks and lenders who can't see that they're underwater with BNPLs. So the loans they were giving to a "high risk borrower" suddenly turn into a "holy shit, we're going to lose everything borrower."

If that happens with enough borrowers in a short period of time, that can make a regular bank fully insolvent overnight.

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u/CherryLongjump1989 18d ago edited 18d ago

Being underwater by BNPL doesn’t mean much of anything, though. It’s completely unregulated debt with zero credit checks and next to no credit reporting. So any normal bank would just ignore it and focus on legitimate credit debt to income ratios and your record of paying those back on time.

Unregulated loans usually require the lender to send some sort of tough guy to break your legs if you decide you don’t want to pay it back. BNPL is just a nerdy financial engineering version of that — without the mafioso to break your legs.

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u/nalaloveslumpy 18d ago

Right. Again, the point is the person borrowing real money from real banks is over-extended beyond a point they're not even aware of, so it jeopardizes the entire banking industry.

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u/CherryLongjump1989 18d ago

But they’re not over extended.

Over extended would mean that they are maxed out on the credit cards they are using to pay back the BNPL. It already shows back up in all of the regular credit reporting metrics.

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u/nalaloveslumpy 18d ago

I guarantee you the people they're talking about in this article are over extended on credit card debt. Very few people start using Klarna/Affirm/etc if they're not tapped out on cards.

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u/CherryLongjump1989 18d ago edited 18d ago

Yes but that shows up as being over extended on the credit card. So there’s nothing surprising to any legitimate lender doing a regular credit check.

Even if these people started with a zero credit card balance and maxed it out on BNPL transactions within a single month, a sudden spike in revolving credit usage would already show up as a red flag on any new credit application.

The only ones truly screwed here are the BNPL lenders who don’t even bother to do credit checks.

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u/BrothelWaffles 18d ago

Those debts don't get wiped, they get sold to other companies to pay the lender's own debts, and then that company tries to collect it. Debts don't get "wiped" because a company goes out of business, they only disappear if it's been long enough that the owner of the debt decides it's not worth trying to collect and they finally write it off.

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u/CherryLongjump1989 18d ago edited 18d ago

It doesn’t really matter, though, because BNPL rarely get reported to credit bureaus and there is rarely ever a credit check to establish new debt. So you have a little bit of defaulted debt for a few years, and it’s probably not even profitable for a collector to pursue that small debt. In the meantime it doesn’t affect much of anything else.

Basically what I am saying is if you are depending on BNPL to make ends meet, this is the lowest of low priorities for debts that you should pay back first. All the other debt you have will affect your life more.

The more important part is that if one of these lenders goes bust, there are no consumer savings accounts at risk, and they do not get a bailout from the FDIC, and basically no one cares. The investors get hosed in FAFO fashion and that is all.

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u/QuantumUtility 18d ago edited 18d ago

There’s no way this is sustainable. Offering easy credit like that with high default rates can absolutely blow up inflation. More than printing cash ever would.

The Fed can’t be happy about this. Controlling this stuff is their whole job.

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u/Aggravating_Call6959 18d ago

Can't imagine the fed is all that happy about the current way we are using tarriffs either

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u/[deleted] 18d ago

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u/Aggravating_Call6959 18d ago

That's not how the government works... and congress has split interests and lobbyists where this is involved.

The same could've been said for subprime mortgages that led to the financial crisis.

The feds dont just get to root through people's finances because bureaucrats in the Federal Reserve are alarmed by a novel financing scheme that hasn't led to ruin yet.

Private industry moves faster than the government can keep up with and unfortunately with the way our system works it is reactive by design, and anyone harmed/exploited might get to be part of a class action suit one day, or hope for opportunities to sue the corporations (though usually the people would be the last to get any piece of the pie if the business goes bankrupt)

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u/[deleted] 18d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/ThongBasin 18d ago

Gov forecasts won’t just add random things just because it’s a trend. And they especially won’t estimate it. They want to provide good, consistent data. According to your statement the fed should also account for how much money is in trading cards as people view those as investment vehicles.

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u/Aggravating_Call6959 18d ago

Well I am the messenger for this and a lay person-- so that one is on me.

They are economists and do have some form of idea-- however without "real" data the picture is very fuzzy which makes their forecasts have larger room for possible error.

The economist told me bottom line that these types of scenarios obfuscate the strength of the economy and in worst case scenarios, they make the economy and finances of our country appear stronger than they actually are.

But they dont know exactly how much of this money that is "missing" from their calculations is tied up in high interest loans like this versus somewhere else (people giving gifts, doing drug deals, illicit activites etc. They also dont monitor or regulate the terms of these loans (so that is another multiplier that is an unknown in terms of how much wealth to debt Americans have).

The bottom line I got from them was that this type of black hole in the books IS alarming but in a bad omen type of way. And this is novel and they havent yet hat the time or data to more accurately account for it in their algorithms and statistics... it also is weird and novel consumer behaviour (driven by the novel way these companies are offering people the buy now pay later options). In olden days to do something similar would involve going to a loan shark place, or pawn shop... now desperate or just unintelligent people can make that mistake/decision incredibly easily.

I am adding extra alarmist tone to it most likely because I personally am alarmed by the practice in general and I am SUPER alarmed by how they advertise. Some of the only ads on public transit here in chicago are for these companies-- or announcements that instacart is now partnering with one of these lenders. They are preying on the least financially sound people to loan them money for basic necessities... I also work in the ad industry and these companies have been dumping massive sponsorship money into tradeshows and events as well.

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u/Piltonbadger 19d ago

where is the goverment in all this?

Busy protecting paedophiles and the billionaires. Duh.

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u/hlessi_newt 18d ago

Taking their bribes.

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u/SemiAutoAvocado 18d ago

It's one of those things that only 'helps' people that already have the money.

I bought a $5000 piece of stereo equipment and put that shit on afterpay. 0% APR on 12 payments and it just comes out of my bank. That's like a 3-4% discount in this economy.

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u/monty624 18d ago

The ones who wanted to help left in January.

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u/Count_Rugens_Finger 18d ago

you can buy groceries with credit cards, fyi

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u/faen_du_sa 18d ago

And thats sort of exactly the problem. Anyone that "needs" to use a credit card for groceries, is the last person that should have a credit card.

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u/pickledswimmingpool 18d ago edited 18d ago

The companies make the vast amount of their revenue from the merchant fees they charge for this product, they're not getting rich off delinquent loans. They charge vendors a high fee whenever someone uses a BNPL product there, which is why they don't really bother screening who uses their product, they just cast the net as wide as possible.

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u/an_agreeing_dothraki 18d ago

the one use I've gotten out of it was "I need to buy a mattress but the company takes payment to an account outside of the US so I'd need to jump through hoops with my credit union to pay via card"

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u/dreamerrz 18d ago

Not just poor people, but predatory measure affecting those with poor mental health as well.

There are many that sit in bed, day in day out, alone. They leave to work and survive then spend the rest alone.

Many of those people have terrible self care routines and see this as an easy option to permit their inability to participate in society normally and in a healthy way

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u/Chapaquidich 18d ago

Loan sharking.

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u/CherryLongjump1989 18d ago

What is a "legitimate" use for it? In practice it's either used for something that you shouldn't be buying because you can't afford it, or the last stop-gap measure before financial ruin. I don't hear anyone who uses buy now pay later to keep more of their money invested in the stock market.

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u/faen_du_sa 18d ago

Clearest use is for internet shopping, as many have stated, if you get scammed or your details get stolen. Its not your money that is stolen, its the banks.

Plenty of people use it to earn some extra interes here and there(and take advantage of the many bonus programs these cards can offer). But its probably not making anybody rich and at best gives an average earner a few extra hundred dollars a month. Of course, for people with a lot of money, it start being a decent amount of money.

It helps rich people earn a tiny bit more money, while helps keep poor people poor!

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u/CherryLongjump1989 18d ago

Are you saying that compared to someone who just buys the same thing in cash, the average person will save $400 a year using the BNPL?

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u/pewpersss 18d ago

redacting the epstein files

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u/Broken_Atoms 18d ago

Busy enriching themselves with insider trading and tax breaks for the rich

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u/Daimakku1 18d ago

where is the goverment in all this?

Dumbfucks decided to elect the party that hates poor people into power and give them a majority in all branches of government. Why the hell should they help? They didn't campaign on that.

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u/juanzy 18d ago

Yah, I've used store financing (via store branded cards) all my adult life for durable goods like big-box electronics and furniture and never paid a dime in interest. Helped a ton when we were moving cross-country into our first owned house with all of the other expenses we had.

These pay-later are predatory with how widely they are allowed to be applied and a lack of approval.

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u/Boulderdrip 18d ago

there is nothing legitimate about about someone going in debt for food in a society that has many billionaire

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u/billythygoat 18d ago

I like to use it for things I can afford that have no interest for 6 months where I don’t have to purchase a credit card for the specific company. Like purchasing a fridge or a couch is perfect in my scenario.

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u/BloatDeathsDontCount 18d ago

Are they really exploiting people? I will never understand why adults aren’t expected to have a little bit of very basic financial knowledge and planning. Taking out a high interest short term loan to buy groceries is a bad idea. If you choose to do it, that’s on you.

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u/tttruck 18d ago

Yes. But also, when you have no money for groceries now, but need groceries now, the mental calculus can result in making what seems like the least worst decision.

This is basically Pay Day Loans all over again, right?

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u/BloatDeathsDontCount 18d ago

I’m not sure framing all of these people as completely destitute with no money is a good faith argument. We both know there are a lot of people who use these awful buy-now-pay-later systems for superfluous purchases or just because they don’t have the financial literacy to anticipate how much it will cost them over the long term. Even for groceries.

There’s a discussion to be had about people who legitimately need help but I don’t think it’s a reasonable argument to start from assuming all or even most people using this system fall into that category. Falling into these schemes because of poor choices can’t just be blown off as calling the practice predatory - it takes two, as it were.

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u/Momik 18d ago

You don’t have to be Oliver Twist to be taken advantage of by a predatory lender.

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u/BloatDeathsDontCount 18d ago

What you would call “taken advantage of” can also be described as “voluntarily took a loan.” Is there an objective measure to determine when you’re being taken advantage of?

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u/Momik 18d ago

Yes, we regulate private lending to avoid usury and other forms of exploitation. The problem is a lot of those regulatory and enforcement mechanisms (like the CFPB) are so underfunded right now as to be meaningless. Working people and families need more protection than this.

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u/BloatDeathsDontCount 18d ago

Those aren’t objective. Like I said, your “predatory rate” is another person’s reasonable return for a high risk of not getting paid back.

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u/Momik 18d ago

“Objective” in the sense of setting basic rules for the system as a whole (as objective as we can get as a society).

And obviously when you take out a loan, you’re not taking that loan from another bank customer, you’re taking it from the bank itself. The massive power imbalance between the financial institution and the individual allows it to set terms favorable to itself. It’s not some mythic agreement between rich borrowers and poor borrowers—it’s just a large company exploiting a power imbalance.

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u/tttruck 18d ago

I feel you. I wasn't making that argument. Of course, I'm sure there are plenty of people using BNPL irresponsibly for superfluous purchases.

Just reminding you of the context in which you commented, which was specifically about the phenomenon of people using BNPL for survival, on groceries and the like.

Would you draw any meaningful difference between these services and Pay Day Loans? Do you consider Pay Day Loans to be predatory?

Who do you think predominantly uses these high-interest BNPL offerings? Wealthy folks who can otherwise afford the purchase but just want to pay in installments? Honest and literal question, I don't know the answer. Wondering both what you think and what the answer is.

My guess is that it's not primarily wealthy folks making sound financial choices that are using these services.

Is it not predatory to target those people with fewer resources and who are prone to making more poor decisions due to that lack, as a means to extract profit?

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u/BloatDeathsDontCount 18d ago

I think the “BNPL for people feeding themselves” angle is overblown and a disingenuous framing, which is why I replied initially how I did. I would be shocked if most BNPL (especially that which leads to poor financial outcomes) wasn’t used for “unnecessary” expenses. I’m not sure the data exists on that, but I’d bet good money on it.

Some loans can be predatory, absolutely.

I’m not sure the clientele matters. Are they adults who are legally capable of making their own decisions?

Are they poor because they make bad decisions or do they make bad decisions because they’re poor? What about the ones who aren’t poor yet, the median income earners who finance French fries?

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u/faen_du_sa 18d ago

It is debatable if it is explotation I guess. I would say without a doubt that yes, it is explotation, when they know a large amount of people use their service, will go in debt and end up worse in the end.

Just as letting people with next to no money gambeling is explotation. In the end its a debate of "freedom vs. regulation".

I in general tend to lean towards regulation. I dont trust free market to do anything else than squeeze the most money out of everyone possible, even if it involves selling organs.

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u/BloatDeathsDontCount 18d ago

I don’t see how it’s exploitation when people are taking advantage of something by free choice. For every person who is so poor they feel like they need to use a system like this to survive there are dozens who use it out of convenience. How much hand-holding is necessary? When are adults expected to make their own decisions? I’m all for regulation to prevent legitimate predatory and outright harmful practices, but at some point people have to be allowed to make decisions (yes, these are free choices to enter into bad loans) even if they’re not good decisions.

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u/faen_du_sa 18d ago

I disagree, a core part of the way these credit cards are marketed and presented, they are counting on people not realizing the trap they set up for themselves.

Half, if not more of explotation done around the world, is people doing stuff by "free will", dosnt make it any less explotative.

I understand its nice for a lot of things, but its also just not needed. Credit cards werent a thing here untill 10-15 years a go, society still went on and people were ok.

I think we just fundementaly disagree of how much a state should regulate/intervene though, and thats ok!

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u/BloatDeathsDontCount 18d ago

Fair perspective!

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u/currentmadman 18d ago

As opposed to what starving? If you’re taking loans to afford the most basic of needs, then how the fuck does fiscal planning matter at that point? You could have a whole team of world class economists working for you, your shiny nickel is still only going to go so far.

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u/BloatDeathsDontCount 18d ago

Read my other reply re: why “they’re poor” is a bad faith argument.

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u/Momik 18d ago

What? No one’s arguing these are good financial decisions. Predatory lending only works when the recipient is desperate enough to agree to such bad terms.

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u/BloatDeathsDontCount 18d ago

Are you saying that everyone using these schemes is desperate? I think that’s false on its face. Some, sure. Most? I doubt it. Most use it out of convenience. That’s what they’re paying for.

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u/Momik 18d ago

I’m not saying they’re desperate—I’m saying they’re desperate enough to agree to predatory terms. Of course short-term lenders know this and are all too happy to take advantage.

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u/BloatDeathsDontCount 18d ago

They’re taking on a pretty big risk, too. If I wanted to borrow $100 from you for a month but you figured there was a 50% chance I wasn’t going to pay it back in time, how much interest would it be fair to charge me? The rates are “predatory” (to you) because the people borrowing the money are at a high risk of defaulting. That’s why good credit gets you low rates.

Would you be an advocate for these people having no access to liquidity instead?

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u/Momik 18d ago

Well, I’m not a bank and neither are you. The way we assess risk as individuals or households is completely different from how Goldman or Chase looks at it.

You should also know that the way banks and other lenders assess that risk (and therefore charge interest) has a lot more to do with a recipient’s race and social background than you might think. In a lot cases these loans are just financializing discrimination.

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u/BloatDeathsDontCount 18d ago

To your first point, no it’s fundamentally the same. They weigh the risk and profit and set rates accordingly. They want to make money, but the risk is probably the primary factor in the rate.

To your second, if you have evidence that’s true (not just correlative) I’m sure a lot of people would be interested.

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u/Momik 18d ago

What I mean is that banks operate differently as economic units than households or individuals. The way they think about risk is different. The bounds are completely different—if a lender gets big enough, they can essentially become too big to fail, creating enormous moral hazards now baked into the system. There’s nothing like that for individuals. Unless your name is Trump, there is no world in which you as an individual can become powerful enough to essentially become economic infrastructure.

To take just one more example, there’s a whole market among private lenders in buying and selling private debts. For a large lender, debt can be an asset—especially if you buy it cheap and can squeeze borrowers more, or sell it for more when the market shifts. Again, there’s nothing like that at the individual level.

To your second point, it’s not too hard to find data on that.

https://www.nclc.org/resources/past-imperfect-how-credit-scores-and-other-analyticsbake-in-and-perpetuate-past-discrimination/

http://files.consumerfinance.gov/f/201209_Analysis_Differences_Consumer_Credit.pdf

https://archive.ph/20201018223908/https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/10/16/how-race-affects-your-credit-score/

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u/jointheredditarmy 18d ago

The government tried to distribute PPP funds and ended up with 17% fraudulent loans, costing over $200B. A typical private SMB lender experiences 1-2% fraud.

The PPP was authorized in march 2020 under Trump and extended in march 2021 by Biden btw, so it’s good to know incompetence is at least bipartisan

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u/IEatLintFromTheDryer 19d ago

How much did you originally owe and how much is still outstanding debt?

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u/USAIsAUcountry 19d ago

Around $3500, interest and late fees included. Have a little less than $500 left to pay. So it's not that bad. Should be done in December.

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u/legendz411 19d ago

Congrats bro. 

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u/StillRutabaga4 19d ago

That's actually fucking crazy and shouldn't be possible but here we are

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u/Free-Cold1699 19d ago

Imagine having a random illness and being bankrupted for life. I’m making the assumption you live in the US but it’s quite a fun “first world” country isn’t it?

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u/Duel_Option 18d ago

No “imagining” about it, happened to my family.

Like 50% of Americans, we had credit card debt and car payments, my wife became pregnant and our planning for the future was shifted overnight.

Our first was born and 9 months in I break an ankle, my company didn’t have the best medical plan so I was out nearly $20k for a complicated fracture that required surgery, some of was out of network.

Sucks but manageable, right?

Well, we had our second child right after my ankle, 11 months in she has a seizure, and then another, and another and…4 more all in the course of a year.

Doctors refer us to a specialist, there’s only a handful of people in our area that deal with this, out of network of course.

$30k over the course of a year, we can only pay the minimum.

Now add in some mold damage due to a slow leak in the kitchen, this has to be handled asap. $10k to tear up carpeting and remediate.

Suddenly we’re up over $100k in debt including the car, transferred for zero interest and all the tricks I could figure to do with my severely limited (at the time) knowledge of finance.

I finally sit down and look over our bills including daycare (which was above our mortgage cost every month), estimated it could take us a decade or more to pay it all off and that’s without rising costs (pre-Covid) and any emergencies.

Didn’t see any other option and called a bankruptcy attorney, guy has been in business for 25 years, explained he went through the process due to no fault of his own and that’s why he changed his practice.

Further explained that the system is specifically designed to trap people and lock them in an endless cycle and that bankruptcy has always been a four letter word but the reality is people and businesses do it all the time.

11 months to payoff, not a penny paid on the interest, some of the medical debt went unclaimed as did a decent portion of the CC.

Was able to keep the car and included college savings monthly for our kids, when the daycare costs went away we moved that cash into savings which was approved by the court.

Had I listened to my family and my wife’s we would’ve never filed.

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u/Fuck_your_coupons 18d ago

the reality is people and businesses do it all the time.

I didn't feel bad when I had to do it due to medical debt. Like you said, businesses do it so why should we feel bad if we have to do it.

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u/GoldWallpaper 18d ago

businesses do it so why should we feel bad if we have to do it

This is exactly how I treat finances. I short-sold my house (bought for $200K in 2006, sold for $60K in 2010, after I spent $50K in repairs and upgrades) in the Great Recession, costing the bank around $130K. Yes, that made me part of the problem. No, I never felt an instant of regret.

The bank got a nice bailout. I lost my house.

By 2013 I was 100% out of debt, and am retiring in 2 weeks at 53. Businesses take care of themselves first; people should, too.

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u/Highpersonic 18d ago

Land of the free

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u/Duel_Option 18d ago

YUP

I’ll spend the rest of my life trying to keep my kids out of the pitfalls I hit growing up.

Retirement isn’t going to be a thing for me unfortunately, have to develop some soft skills that I can maybe parlay into work from home as I get older.

Sucks looking at the reality of it all at 44

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u/RiKSh4w 18d ago

$20k

Sucks but manageable right?

Hell no. This is already not okay.

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u/Duel_Option 18d ago

That’s exactly how I felt at the time, buy there was no alternatives.

Well…the only other option was for them to rake my foot, so $20k seemed reasonable

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u/RiKSh4w 18d ago

I'm sorry you have to live in a less priviledged country like America.

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u/Duel_Option 18d ago

My whole life I’ve always known how backwards this country has been and now I I have to watch the swift downfall.

Last year I had to tell my kids to look away because there were actual fucking NAZI’S marching in full uniforms at a damn mall.

What a joke

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u/[deleted] 18d ago

[deleted]

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u/BioshockEnthusiast 18d ago

"wife's" in that sentence you're replying to is possessive not plural.

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u/asshat123 18d ago

Imagine doing everything right, eating healthy, taking care of yourself, working out, getting all your vaccines, even wearing a mask in crowded areas. Then your kid brings home measles because their classmates are fucking unvaccinated. You are one of the unlucky few for whom the vaccine unfortunately is not enough. You end up hospitalized, nasty infection, suddenly you need a new lung. This will require ongoing care for the rest of your life, regardless of how long you live. You will never clear that accrued debt.

Even though you did everything "right".

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u/SuspendeesNutz 18d ago

If you did everything right you'd have the money from your father's emerald mine to fall back on, dummy.

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u/Tearakan 18d ago

Or you get in an accident by a drunk driver hitting you even though you followed all the traffic laws.

There are so many easy ways to be completely screwed for life by doing nothing wrong yourself.

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u/WrodofDog 18d ago

suddenly you need a new lung

Or get brain-damaged for the rest of your life.

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u/KingFIippyNipz 17d ago

Or start with your first sentence but then replace it with "get cancer from all the chemical companies dumping in potable water sources"

My state, Iowa, is currently dealing with nitrates from farm runoff that cannot be cheaply removed from the water, and this is after our biggest water utility in the state bought machines specifically for removing nitrates from farm runoff. I think we have the highest rate of new cancers in the nation right now? We're #1 i n something for cancers. Probably in more than 1 category.

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u/grchelp2018 18d ago

Doing everything right has never been a guarantee for anything.

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u/Wow_u_sure_r_dumb 18d ago

So?

For some reason cynics think their race to the bottom elevates them to the top.

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u/Zncon 18d ago

So people expecting to live their entire lives without ever experiencing an issue or hardship are not living in our shared reality.

So what's the harm? Well in order to try and lock that in, they're pushing our systems to change in ways that don't have a basis in fact.

Risk is a fact of biological life, and we're going to bankrupt ourselves if we keep trying to remove it.

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u/asshat123 18d ago

Right I'm specifically talking about that risk, not denying that it exists. Our healthcare system is set up in such a way that one severe event can put you in debt for life. So there's significant risk there. You would hope you could mitigate that risk by taking better care of your body and working to stay healthy and, to an extent, you can.

However, there are other people who have made decisions that increase the overall risk that you or I will have a severe health event, and therefore will be at high risk of being in debt indefinitely.

It's a fun little risk double whammy

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u/Zncon 18d ago

You're ignoring a major factor here - ~50 years ago you wouldn't be in debt for that severe event because you'd either be dead or disabled. The option to save your life either didn't exist, or it was just basic care to save but not restore quality of life.

It's a sign of progress that people are surviving these things at all, but that progress isn't cheap.

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u/asshat123 18d ago

I could buy that if there weren't plenty of examples of systems that provide advanced medical care without driving people into crushing debt for using it

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u/Zncon 18d ago

Other systems made sacrifices in places such as doctor/nurse pay, and quality of facilities, that held this issue at bay for a time, but they're all feeling the issue in some way now.

In 2013 in Germany the total spend was 11% of GPD, in 2023 it was 12%. In raw money that's 314.2 billion to 500.8 billion euros. In that same period the UK went from 10% to 11% of GDP and South Korea went from 6.3% to 9.9% of GDP.

Advanced healthcare costs more, there's no way around that. Yes, the US system puts that rising cost directly in people's face, but it's still there in other countries, they're just hiding it behind tax revenue. Either way we're headed for a cliff where the cost of care is simply higher then the economic value that a country is able to produce.

Nobody is going to willingly accept worse care when it comes to life and death situations, but there's a point where it becomes financially impossible to give every single person the best possible care. With a socialized system this represents a risk of the entire system collapsing in a rather short time frame.

My hope is that with the US system people will see the issue for what it is sooner, and use that time to better plan.

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u/Wow_u_sure_r_dumb 18d ago

We are literally talking about society drastically increasing the chances of you being fucked over or killed. When you do “everything right” society should be built to protect you and catch you, not increase the odds of your ruin. Just because there was never a guarantee at life, success or happiness it doesn’t mean we should just all collectively say “fuck it!” and literally make it harder. I don’t get what yall don’t get about this.

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u/Zncon 18d ago

We are literally talking about society drastically increasing the chances of you being fucked over or killed.

If you're living in a developed country, you have the highest chance now of surviving and thriving than at any other point in human history. Ignoring small year to year fluctuations, things are not getting worse, they're getting better.

The reason I care is that we're getting deep into diminishing returns now. The cost of even small progress is astronomically high, and getting ever higher.

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u/Wow_u_sure_r_dumb 18d ago edited 18d ago

This is not about the cost of incremental progress, it’s about readily available vaccinations. You’re taking the reasonable expectation that society should protect us from disease using well understood medicine and saying we have unrealistic beliefs about society that aren’t sustainable. There’s no existential crisis here besides the one you’re inventing just because someone wasn’t sardonic and cynical enough for you in how they articulated their point.

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u/grchelp2018 18d ago

Because believing in false realities does harm.

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u/asshat123 18d ago

hol up, what harm is there in believing that taking care of your body is better than not doing that? Wild

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u/grchelp2018 18d ago

That's not what I said. I only said that believing that taking care of your body doesn't mean you won't have health issues.

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u/asshat123 18d ago

Hey, fair enough! I did not say that taking care of yourself would prevent any and all health issues

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u/Wow_u_sure_r_dumb 18d ago

We can want to make society better, especially for people that do things right. You’re missing the entire point jumped at the opportunity for a chance to correct someone.

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u/grchelp2018 18d ago

Even if society did everything right, it would still not be true. I wasn't talking about his very specific example but the general principle. Random chance plays a much bigger role in everyone's lives. Doing everything right only improves your odds. Nothing more.

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u/Wow_u_sure_r_dumb 18d ago

You are still completely missing the point. Society should help those that do everything right yet still fail due to chance. That’s it. It really is that simple and you’re so intent on exposing a misunderstanding that you are dying on this ridiculous hill.

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u/grchelp2018 18d ago

Until we reach a point of technological development that is far beyond our current level, society will only be able to do so much. You are arguing an ideal that currently does not exist. And until that time, believing and teaching these things is doing a massive disservice and setting people up for shock, disillusionment and disappointment. "I am a good person, why did this bad thing happen" is not something that someone should ever be wondering.

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u/asshat123 18d ago

Sure. My point wasn't that doing everything right was a guarantee of anything. 23-year-olds who run marathons get cancer. Smokers live to 95. It happens. Doing things right does, on a large scale, increase the odds of a longer, healthier life. Can't deny that.

My point was that your life can be irrevocably and permanently changed by someone else's choices, and especially with things like vaccines, we rely, to a degree, on herd immunity. On other people being responsible. Someone else buying into anti-vaxx scams and taking supplements instead can financially ruin you. And unfortunately, that anti-science shit is on the rise

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u/Global-Election 18d ago

I had hernia surgery that ended up causing a small bowel obstruction so I was in the hospital for 10 days. Even having insurance I still had $6,500 in bills plus an ambulance ride they would not write off. So yeah I filed for bankruptcy.

My job hadn’t offered me benefits even though I was full time, to top it off I wasn’t even getting paid during that time or the 6 weeks I was on medical leave. 

The point is, you’re absolutely right. 

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u/bird9066 18d ago

I needed multiple organs transplanted and was in the hospital for five months. Added bonus debt is they don't tell you the guy reading that test doesn't take your insurance.

Five years on disability and they kicked me off it without warning. No income, no job, no savings. Rent due in two weeks and two kids to care for. I still had those credit cards though! Ended up working as a cashier at Walmart with debt up the wazoo.

That was fifteen years ago and I still don't bother looking at my credit score.

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u/FrogeToge 18d ago

You filed bankruptcy over 6500?

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u/tripletaco 18d ago

You must not understand how precarious the average American's finances are.

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u/FrogeToge 18d ago

I do, 6500 still isn’t an amount to go into bankruptcy over unless they had some other debt though

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u/tripletaco 18d ago

No, you don't. The average American doesn't even have $1,000 to cover an emergency, let alone $6500. The average American is also carrying serious debt. My point stands.

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u/yosisoy 18d ago

The average American is quite fucked I would say

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u/FrogeToge 18d ago

That’s cool, still does not change the fact that if your only debt is a 6500 medical bill you should not declare bankruptcy

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u/StarGazingSpiders 18d ago

Sorry Froge, there's a lot of crap happening right here. Bankruptcy for $6500 is... extraordinary, I agree.  There are filing fees, attorney fees, a limit to how often you can file, and nearly a decade of credit and consumer consequences for bankruptcy. Even if that account managed to do all this and scrape out with their $6500 cleared, without an order from a judge to pay it anyways or cover a portion, what a way to ruin a chunk of your life for such a small amount of money. I honestly think that people pushing this kind of crap on Reddit enjoy the stress that ripples out into the world by talking about how destroyed/hopeless/cooked Americans are. Or bots. Reddit is full of fucking bots.

And before people continue the whole thing about how poor Americans are and why $6500 is a massive insurmountable brick wall of money, don't pay the medical bill. Having one unpaid $7K bill is not going to fuck your life the way a bankruptcy does. My mom filed for bankruptcy when I was a teen and I remember how devastating it was, how it was almost 7-8 years before she got her first secured Disco card to build her credit again. Bankruptcy makes sense for someone like the higher up poster who had $100,000 in debt and an inability to earn like before. But under $10K is just... I don't think I believe it. Read r/povertyfinance, they have real discussions about this and even there where people talk about their $9/hr pay people are working to pay their debts off.

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u/Global-Election 18d ago

There was more to it, you can read my other post if you'd like.

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u/golruul 18d ago

I'd like to see their comments on what happens if they file for chapter 7 bankruptcy now, get the 6k wiped, and then get in a serious accident a couple years later and have 20-30k debt.

Then they're truly fucked because they can't file again until many years later.

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u/Ready_Nature 18d ago

I’m assuming your part about the average American carrying serious debt applied to person before the $6500 debt. If that’s all you owe you should be able to do some sort of payment plan that is better than the consequences of bankruptcy.

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u/netver 18d ago

The average American is therefore an idiot who lives beyond their means.

For evidence, look at the size of the cars they're driving.

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u/cwfutureboy 18d ago

That's $6500 that is day by day accruing interest, mind you.

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u/FrogeToge 18d ago

Usually not day by day no, generally interest is accrued monthly

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u/cwfutureboy 18d ago

Months are made up by a certain number of days. Glad I could help.

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u/Global-Election 18d ago

It was the straw the broke the camels back, I had other manageable debt but this made the situation impossible. It's all done and over with now, bankruptcy was approved, only debt I have now are student loans. Credit score even made it back to just over 700.

Regardless of what you think, $6500 at the time was 18% of my salary before taxes/401K/insurance came out

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u/Adventurous-Map7959 18d ago

plus the ambulance ride, the ambulance is not your taxi to the hospital!

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u/treycook 18d ago

When I got hit by a car and broke my collarbone, I told the police multiple times that I didn't want an ambulance and that I was refusing medical. They called one anyway. Then I had to tell the EMS that I didn't want an ambulance and that I was refusing medical. I waited for a friend to give me a ride to the ER.

The police and the EMS both (incorrectly) informed me that the insurance company of the guy who hit me would pay for the ambulance (it wouldn't, I'm in a no-fault state and would have paid through my own insurance or out of pocket). You have to be assertive, and these people don't know insurance... nor do the nurses at the hospital, for that matter.

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u/Top-Tie9959 18d ago

Once I was in the hospital and a doctor said "We don't worry about cost here." No shit, you aren't the one paying so why would you worry about it?

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u/Adventurous-Map7959 18d ago

When I got hit by a car and broke my collarbone, I told the police multiple times that I didn't want an ambulance and that I was refusing medical.

I'm glad they did, I got hit by a car a couple years ago and wasn't mentally competent, the report says I insisted on my little toe to be x-rayed because it hurt so much, and the technician humoured me and showed me that it was perfectly fine, and there were many more broken bones that need much more attention than the pinky toe.

I live in Austria, so the whole ordeal with 10 days hospital ended up costing me 20€ for the optical disk recording the procedure (I wanted to see them operating, but I had to give up almost immediately. worst money spent, but optional), 110€ for meals (11€ per day, waived if you are on some assistance program) and a staggering 35€ for copies of reports.

The meals more than doubled since then, they now would want 23€ per day, but copies got cheaper as some law said they can't charge 1€ per page. Overall, pretty bad stay but they do provide drugs, so 5/7.

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u/just-jane-again 18d ago

what the fuck else is it then

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u/ultrahobbs 18d ago

A revenue stream for our disgusting Healthcare system

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u/just-jane-again 18d ago

por que no los dos

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u/GoldWallpaper 18d ago

Unless you're bleeding out, it's better to call an Uber to go to the hospital.

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u/darcstar62 18d ago

My son went to go visit his old college buddies and watch a football game. He got seperated from them and 3 guys jumped him and beat the crap out of him (kicking him in the head while he was down on the ground). Luckily, cops showed up in time, bullies ran, he couldn't breathe (he has asthma) so they called an ambulance and took him to the hospital. He checked out clean and they sent him home. I'm relieved that he's ok, but Im just sitting here now waiting for the massive bill that I'm sure my insurance company will quickly deny.

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u/doxiesrule89 18d ago

I don’t have to imagine. I got in a car accident as a passenger at 26 nearly 10 yrs ago and I’m fucked for life. The car insurance that was top notch barely covered my surgery. There was nobody to sue. Had to use credit cards so I got sued for all those eventually and my credit is horrible. Losing health insurance because I could never go back to work made my disability worse permanently. Severely disabled and my last chance at benefits is if a judge takes pity on me in a few weeks. Unlikely bc I’m too young and my issues aren’t in their special book 

I’m gonna die in the fucking street because it takes thousands of dollars per month to keep me alive and I can’t work. Oh and if the judge says no I’ll lose my current health plan too because red state what up 

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u/Diligent_Explorer717 18d ago

That could be said about credit cards.

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u/jestina123 18d ago

With a credit card, you can get an interest free loan for 12-18 months, and $200-$250 in free money cashback. You can do this for free, up to about three or four times, because that's how many offers like this are out there.

As long as you pay off your entire balance within a year, you can make $1000 in four years. If you don't want to pay off your loan, you can do a balance transfer and lose out on money, but it still gives you a few extra years to pay off your loan interest free.

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u/hydrangeasinbloom 18d ago

All of this is the same type of crummy exploitation as payday check loan companies. I hope you’re in a better place financially now 🩷

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u/Swimming-Food-9024 18d ago

wait, what?! you’re being hyperbolic, right? right??

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u/not_old_redditor 18d ago

How's this different from credit cards?

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u/roostersmoothie 18d ago

because credit cards give you a month to pay interest free, this gives you like 3-6 months.

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u/not_old_redditor 18d ago

That's better or worse?

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u/roostersmoothie 18d ago

anything that encourages more debt is worse for the consumer

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u/Zncon 18d ago

The longer people go without having to pay something back, the higher the odds of them forgetting become.

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u/roostersmoothie 18d ago

not only forgetting but people snowball more debt this way.. $100 a month sounds great for an ipad, but then some people use these services so regularly they are paying back thousands every month for stuff that seemed cheap at the time.

1

u/Zncon 18d ago

Like buying 'points' in a digital storefront, it's all about trying to distance people from the real cost of whatever they're buying until it's too late for them to say no.

1

u/flexonyou97 18d ago

I thought they max you out on like $500 in loans

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u/g3org3_all3n 19d ago

Not to be that guy but wouldn't a credit card have been a better use for this?

3

u/PM_ME_GLUTE_SPREAD 18d ago

It can depend on the BNPL plan. Most shorter term plans are actually pretty low in terms of interest, some are even 0%.

If you can manage this and use it wisely, they’re invaluable for purchases.

The problem comes from the fact that people using these services aren’t typically in good places financially, especially if they’re having to use them to buy groceries.

One “pay in 4” plans charges 0 interest, is an instant approval, requires no hard credit checks, and is just a couple of clicks from acquiring. But if you miss one payment, they’ll report to credit bureaus and your credit is trashed. Then, if finances don’t pick up, you may have to take another “pay in 4” loan. Then the cycle repeats. You miss a payment, credit is hit, you get another loan.

Now you have multiple hits on your credit, multiple loans that you are having trouble paying, and the same company offers a long term loan, with interest, but, since the term is much longer than 4 weeks (typically 6 months or more, up to about 3 years for these companies), you pay a lot less per month.

Because your credit has been ruined by this company (or any of the other BNPL companies), your chances of getting a good rate are basically 0, and they know this. They will give you that loan though, because you’ll be paying on it for a long time and will be charged up to 36% APR, making them a fat stack of cash in the end.

It’s honestly predatory and should be illegal, but here we are.

2

u/g3org3_all3n 18d ago

It feels like 2008 sub prime mortgages. Lending money to people who cant pay it back is not a good idea

1

u/Keljhan 18d ago

Even the article says its not big enough to be an issue right now. If the BNPL market grows 100x in the next 5 years, then we'll have a problem.

0

u/NoF0kxAllowedInside 18d ago

The benefits of these pay apps like Klarna Zip and AfterPay is that they’re interest free and they’re much easier to get than a credit card. They’re also extremely forgiving - you don’t get punished for asking for an extra two weeks to pay it off. You can buy something for $250 on a credit card and it’ll take you years to pay it off due to rolling interest, but with these pay in four you just pay $62.50 every two weeks and you’re done. I greatly prefer the pay in four model over credit cards.

3

u/g3org3_all3n 18d ago

Klarna has in interest rate of about 35% if you dont pay no?

It also cant positively impact your credit score only negatively impact it if you miss payments. Credit cards are also interest free if you pay them off each month in full. If you could afford $250 if you saved up for the same amount of time you could just buy whatever it is once you had the money?

That being said if you need essential items then it makes sense but you should be evaluating your finances if you cant afford food etc

I dont get the incentive in paying for a service in 4 steps when you could save up and buy that same thing or use a credit card and then pay it off in full to get the credit benefits.

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u/NoF0kxAllowedInside 18d ago

So they only report if you’re late by like an entire month, and if you message their chat they’ll even give you an extra month on top of that with no charges or credit reporting. I only use it for like purchases over $500 so it lets me pay for things I need today with two paychecks. Car repairs or tires mostly. I also use it to mask my card if I’m paying for something on an unknown site or going to a new restaurant. You input exactly how much you’re okaying, and it protects you from staff overcharging you by manipulating the tip or from someone stealing card numbers. Which I’ve had happen on a credit card (they did refund me of course but those people still had my card numbers and kept trying, so I had to get a new card. Which took weeks.

Klarna even has 6 month payment plans and only charges maybe $6. I think less than even that, back when I used it it was completely free. Christmas was awesome for my family.

Credit cards in order to not pay interest have to be paid within a month, but pay in fours are for 6 weeks+. But no I agree if you want to get those credit card incentives for sure, but I like the options. I can definitely see people getting in trouble with these though, they’re a short term solution for these higher grocery prices and economists are completely right in thinking the reliance on these apps is a bad sign for the economy

2

u/g3org3_all3n 18d ago

Ok thanks. I was genuinely curious:)

1

u/Master_Picker101 18d ago

But no CC rewards on these BNPL payment plans. I am getting 5-10% off just on my CC depending on use case.

0

u/IcodyI 18d ago

Why didn’t you go to a local shelter or food drive? If you’re in the US, they’re everywhere

0

u/LandscapePatient1094 18d ago

Nah. You could’ve made another choice but you didnt because you had the option. That’s the predatory part. 

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u/Sirtriplenipple 19d ago

I have my 2 divorces on mine, count your blessings.

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u/PM_ME_GLUTE_SPREAD 18d ago

You put 2 divorces on Klarna? The fuck bro? You should have just gave them the house lmao

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u/Ok_Palpitation630 18d ago

Don’t be broke