Not victim blaming. Do not do payments. You either have the money or you don't. Save your money, buy it when you have it fully.
Why I'll never use Affirm again
91–100 of 298 posts
Re: Why I'll never use Affirm again
#92I 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.
Re: Why I'll never use Affirm again
#93Earlier quoted context omitted.
Affirm doesn't list their B2B pricing on their website, but credit cards typically charge up to 5% of the total purchase price in processing fees. It wouldn't be hard for a challenging upstart to make a solid business that just charges less. That's probably not the primary revenue driver for most BNPL companies though. You've also seen credit card companies change their offerings to compete with the BNPL model. One o…
> credit cards typically charge up to 5% of the total purchase price in processing fees Source? I thought it’s 2 to 3%.
Sure, 2-3% if you're WalMart. If you're (small respectable retailer) you'll be paying three times that and if you're a tiny retailer you'll be paying five times that.
Re: Why I'll never use Affirm again
#94I'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.
ive used them for a 12 month 0% interest. why not let them eat inflation for me, and I can put my money elsewhere
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Re: Why I'll never use Affirm again
#95I feel like all these online "buy now pay later" services are just there to prey on poor people
Totally Agreed.
Re: Why I'll never use Affirm again
#96I'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.
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.
Bingo. That's why I've done payment plans as well. Not because I couldn't just buy the thing, but because spreading the payments out over 12 months means more investment capital.
Re: Why I'll never use Affirm again
#97I have no idea what an Affirm is supposed to be; would people please include some context or otherwise try to be helpful when they post service complaints?
Re: Why I'll never use Affirm again
#98Earlier quoted context omitted.
Hi! Affirms scores (evaluates the risk) of each transaction in real time, which allows then to have reasonably low bad rates. Very few lenders can do it.
Until there's a credit crunch or a recession, in which case all that "real-time" risk management will be moot and losses will be massive.
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Re: Why I'll never use Affirm again
#99Earlier quoted context omitted.
I can understand the value prop to the consumer - but I have a harder time understanding why it's an actual business, and why existing credit card companies or other lenders can't eat their lunch with the flip of a switch.
Hi! Affirms scores (evaluates the risk) of each transaction in real time, which allows then to have reasonably low bad rates. Very few lenders can do it.
Why is this an advantage? The factors in assessing the risk are the creditworthiness of the customer and the amount. Also, I find it hard to believe that the creditworthiness of a customer actually fluctuates fast enough for Affirm to be able to do some arbitrage on it.
Re: Why I'll never use Affirm again
#100Earlier quoted context omitted.
Affirm doesn't list their B2B pricing on their website, but credit cards typically charge up to 5% of the total purchase price in processing fees. It wouldn't be hard for a challenging upstart to make a solid business that just charges less. That's probably not the primary revenue driver for most BNPL companies though. You've also seen credit card companies change their offerings to compete with the BNPL model. One o…
> credit cards typically charge up to 5% of the total purchase price in processing fees Source? I thought it’s 2 to 3%.
there's also a flat fee per transaction (eg, 3.25% + $0.10). this can make the effective rate pretty high for small purchases.
https://www.valuepenguin.com/credit-card-processing/intercha...