Costco is introducing its own “Buy Now, Pay Later” program.
The wholesale retail chain will offer a payment plan option on some online purchases through its payment partner Affirm.
Buy Now, Pay Later programs offer flexibility to customers and let them purchase products by paying for them over a specified time period.
Costco’s Buy Now Pay Later program can be applied to transactions on its website that total between $500 and $17,500, with repayment periods ranging from three to 36 months.
The new Buy Now, Pay Later option will also charge interest, with APR rates between 10% and 36%. A $500 purchase at 20% APR, with payments spread out across 6 months, for example, will cost $88.27 per month and the original $500 item would cost $529.61 overall.
Payments must be made through Affirm’s app or website but customers can also set up automatic payment deductions.
A Buy Now, Pay Later plan can help stretch a large purchase, such as an electronic device or home appliance, across multiple months and paychecks, but there may be penalties for customers. Missing Buy Now, Pay Later payments or paying installments late can hurt one’s credit score.
The 2030’s Costco Bubble
I want to be the first to default on $17,500 worth of Costco brand burger patties. The one true BuURgR
36% is ridiculous
I have a system that goes like buy now, pay never. In other words, stealing.
I love my collateralized hot dog obligations.
🌭
25% of the US is using buy-now-pay-later services to pay for groceries. This is gonna be a huge expanding industry over the next 5 years. Expect the Last Week Tonight episode imminently.
Except Oliver’s “solution” will be regulating interest rates on grocery loans. The guy is controlled opposition
Just go back to his Kid Starver episode whenever you need reminding. He handwaved the rightful criticism of that blairite shithead and didn’t even mention how they sabotaged Corbyn, doing the same lesser evil shit he does back during the Clinton, Biden, and Harris elections.
My grandparents: We are taking out a loan to finance 200 acres of land.
My parents: We are taking out a loan to finance a 3 bedroom 2 bath home.
Me: I’m taking out a loan to finance a 20 year old car.
My children: I’m taking out a loan to finance a box of hot pockets.
Brazil does this for gas.
The new Buy Now, Pay Later option will also charge interest, with APR rates between 10% and 36%.
10% and 36%.
Bankruptcy button
not sure when the Affirm APR would kick in after purchase date but just for comparison’s sake, credit cards have been around 20% in my experience. 36% is fucking highway robbery.
A lot of these pay later programs are wrecking people’s credit scores as well, since each one counts as a new line of credit constantly being opened.
I mean there’s a whole conversation about the nonsensical credit score system in itself to be had but even at face value this is such a clear example of degradation of capitalist society.
It’s like the moment in The Big Short when they realize the bubble is about to pop, except we keep fucking having that moment and it never fucking pops.
…yet
A $500 purchase at 20% APR, with payments spread out across 6 months, for example, will cost $88.27 per month and the original $500 item would cost $529.61 overall.
think it’s on residual when paid according to plan, probably 36% kicks in after missed payment
imagine bulk buying shit from a discount retailer that charges a members only annual fee, only to completely negate the discount through consumer credit financing.
I don’t even get what type of customer this is for, except I guess people who were told Costco is a good deal, but don’t really understand how to not fuck themselves.
also, I guess like emergency household / home business appliance replacement for people with weird credit?
I feel like so much “consumer credit innovation” in the US is from people looking at how much $ payday loan type places make in pure profit and trying to get in on the action.
How many years before we bring back indentured servitude for debt and debtors prisons with forced labor. Capital has one goal and that’s the complete and total enslavement of humanity
Indenture 4 denture! Get your dentures now, pay for them later! Yheeeee-haw!
Most people here probably haven’t heard of it but Medicare offers this for expensive drugs now. Medicare Prescription Payment Plan I think it’s called. People can get their really expensive blood thinners or what have you and pay it back monthly.
love to finance a gallon of mayonnaise
No, I’m not paying. If you want it back, come a take it
I say as I lounge in my bathtub full of mayonnaise
finance the $15 gallon of mayo for $19.50, but you can make 90 mayo sandwiches for $3/ea from each gallon. a couple of high traffic nights at the Le Bistro Mayo, and you are ready to franchise.
Le Bistro Mayo
that exists and it’s called panera
Mr. Mayonnaise’s Mansion is better. The best sandwiches in wherever we are now.
I literally suggested this as a joke once holy fucking shit the United States is a demonic country.
The only good payment plans I’ve seen are the ones attached to an Amazon credit card that charge 0% for up to a year as long as no payments are missed (the trustworthiness of this probably varies by region). Which you select manually from a reliable website frontend.
The consequences of missing a payment for all of these are the same, they hit your credit score. But at least from the Amazon Credit Card ones I’ve seen, the payment is just part of your normal credit card bill payment.
A lot of people have problems with Affirm and other credit card companies fucking up auto-payments on their end and blaming the user, with automatic hits to their credit scores. At least with a credit card bill payments are reliable.
IMO saving up is always better, credit cards should be avoided, payment plans should be avoided, most people can only be trusted with the lowest interest card they can get with the smallest limit they can get away with. I also wasted a lot of money not understanding how my bank’s overdraft protection worked in the past.
Never do payment plans on basic necessities like this from Costco, they’re basically payday loans that know you won’t be able to pay them off. If you have to use them you can’t afford them.
Edit: basically avoid credit cards and financing as much as humanly possibly
credit cards should be avoided
Avoided, but not completely. If you ever want a loan to finance a car or home, you want a better credit score. Having no credit (or credit that isn’t old enough) will hurt you financially.
I’m sure we all know this, but credit cards should just be used as a debit card. Only spend within your means, pay it off every month. This stupid country requires you to have a
social credit scorecredit history for major purchases.The examples and perspective in this post deal primarily with the United States and do not represent a worldwide view of the subject.
I know this is a US centric thread but I’ve heard this advise repeated numerous times in countries where it does not apply by people who have picked it up off usian influencers.
As long as you consistently and immediately pay what you charge to the card, credit cards are safer to use as debit cards.
I’d rather someone steal my credit card and use it fraudulently so that I have to have those transactions reversed/canceled, than having someone steal my debit card and charge/withdraw my cash so that I have to go to my bank and ask them to kindly replace the cash which was stolen from me.
I agree they also have benefits like extended warranties, IMO the way to go is to have two lines from the same bank, one with low interest and a high limit locked to only be used for emergency expenses, and another card with a low limit that has good rewards
One can be a financial cushion and the other can be habitually used to skim rewards with relatively lower risk of ending up in debt
Yup. I do it that way. Except, to counter my own point, I do have that setup and there’s one flaw I’ve seen so far.
I once was moving and making a lot of purchases with my lower limit card then paying them immediately to keep it available and utilize the rewards for the next round of purchases. They flagged it for fraudulent activity and locked my card because I made too many payments on it within a pay period. It was a fucking pain to get them to unlock it, especially since I needed it during the move. So, there’s one downside if you have a lower limit card. Might be best to just use it as much as the limit allows or a little more and pay that within one period only. Anything more might create some issues, resolvable but annoying. Ironically, not paying it won’t flag anything besides interest.
Yeah it’s definitely needed to start building a credit history but a low enough limit to avoid getting into debt unless the person getting it has a lot of restraint and diligence about tracking their finances lol
Edit: basically avoid credit cards and financing as much as humanly possibly
if you’re budget constrained, yeah. as goodguywithacat says below, treat a CC like a debit card and pay it off every month. I’ve never made an interest payment on a CC in my life. I put almost all my monthly expenses on a credit card that has 1-5% cashback rewards. I get ~$100 a month in reward points that I regularly spend on shit i need. at this point, i’ve spent over $1k in money i never worked for. one of life’s little perks.
I used one for paying monthly bills and utilities and didn’t redeem rewards for a couple of years, it was a few hundred dollars by the time I got to it which was really nice but also risky to hold because my bank could arbitrarily recalculate the value of the rewards points
