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Why I'll never use Affirm again

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Re: Why I'll never use Affirm again

#261

Post by barkerja »

Sohcahtoa82 wrote: post #17

I've never understood the appeal of using a product like Affirm, especially if you already have a credit card. Credit cards already give you a 30-day grace period before purchases start accruing interest. Using Affirm to extend that to 42 days seems inconsequential. It seems like their target customer are people bad with credit, which would make them predatory.

> Credit cards already give you a 30-day grace period before purchases start accruing interest.

This depends on the timing of your transaction and your statement date. If you purchase something 1 day before your statement date, and you don't pay it off that same day, you will accrue interest.

Re: Why I'll never use Affirm again

#262

Post by faeriechangling »

krallja wrote: post #259
faeriechangling wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The incentive seems pretty obvious to me. You can take the money you save, put it into an ultraconservative investment vehicle, and effectively end up paying less money overall for the same purchase. Most people who finance through these providers do not run into any problems. To put it another way, if you don't take advantage of 0% APR financing, you are effectively paying a surcharge to not have to deal with the ad…

> ultraconservative investment vehicle Which pays less than 1% APR. Over six weeks. On a purchase of $271. Congratulations, you saved 31¢.

I probably wouldn’t bother for a $271 purchase but if we’re talking a several thousand dollar computer financed over a year, sure. Worth a few bucks.

Re: Why I'll never use Affirm again

#263

Post by 0des »

syedkarim wrote: post #205
411111111111111 wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I cannot say anything wrt this specific case but it definitely depends. Where I'm from you'd basically make 2 contracts: one purchase agreement and then another one for the money, which is basically just a credit you've gotta pay back. So here you'd have to contact the seller, as the other party merely gave you a credit with hopefully good terms

Where are you from?

Asking that is a precursor to violence where some of us are from as it's an understood "what colors do you fly" type of question.

Re: Why I'll never use Affirm again

#265

Post by 30367286 »

jerf wrote: post #113
L_Rahman wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

0% APR over 12 months for a big ticket purchase like a mattress in an inflationary environment and a bull market can easily equal an additional 5-7% discount on 2000 dollars. Admittedly this is not how most people are using Affirm, but it's definitely been useful to me in that way.

Only if you have a source of post-inflation dollars, such as, your salary having been adjusted for inflation in the meantime, or you've sold inflated commodities recently at a post-inflation price, perhaps a used car that appreciated over the purchase term. If you are stuck with pre-inflation dollars this is no advantage. You should not simply assume that you have access to more dollars just because inflation is risi…

Yeah, the trick on taking out low interest loans is they have to be long term, like a mortgage. Over 30 years, I'm definitely paying it back in post-inflation dollars. In one year? Not really. I'd have to get a raise on, like, the day I took out the loan.

Re: Why I'll never use Affirm again

#266

Post by bigtones »

mlevchin-affirm wrote: post #198

Hi, I am the CEO at Affirm. I am sorry for the bad experience you appear to have had with our customer support — it is certainly not what we strive for. Please email me at max.levchin @ affirm.com with either the transaction ID or the email address you used to register, and I will track down exactly what happened here. I realize you may not care at this point, but I’d greatly appreciate it, as it will help us prevent…

Max, you should personally read some of your negative NPS feedback after service interactions to get a better understanding of what is going wrong in your business.

If you're not already using NPS surveys after customer interactions and then looking at the detractors on how to improve your service, you should start now. Could be really enlightening.

Re: Why I'll never use Affirm again

#268

Post by hackernewds »

packeted wrote: post #31

Planet Money is looking for people who have had questionable experiences with BNPL providers, I'd take a look if you haven't already: https://www.npr.org/2022/02/10/1079837232/have-you-used-buy-...

So basically reporting, with an agenda and selection bias?

Re: Why I'll never use Affirm again

#269

Post by ergocoder »

Johnny555 wrote: post #73

There's a misconception that when you initiate a chargeback through your credit card, then you're good, you have your money and the merchant just has to eat it. But the chargeback doesn't erase your debt with the merchant, so they are free to collect that debt by other means, including sending it to a debt collector. Adding a third party like Affirm makes this messier - Affirm (presumably) fulfilled their service, th…

The point still stands. You should not use affirm.

When a problem happens, it is "nobody's" fault. But your credit gets destroyed though.

Re: Why I'll never use Affirm again

#270

Post by [deleted] »

danvoell wrote: post #92

I worked at a large OTA (Online Travel Agency) who adopted Affirm a few years back. I vehemently opposed it and told everyone I could up the chain of command. A vast majority of the folks who used it, are the ones who shouldn't use it. Taking out a two year loan for a 3 day vacation.

[deleted]
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