Diffrence is they are not regulated as a credit product when it clearly is a credit product. (like credit card or hire puchase)
I’m honestly against the whole concept of it, I have a credit card but never use it and have a full amount direct debit for the few times I do use it.
What i’m trying to say is with a credit product like HP or a credit card you know what you are getting yourself into. Borrowing money to by somthing so the customer can make a informed choice.
I may even say I avoid companies that offer it on ethical grounds. (Vote with your hot coral card is the ultimate tool in this case)
They provide the finance for Samsung’s upgrade program so I can understand why they have my data but there are apparently people who have never directly used Klarna’s finance products who received the email.
Apparently they process payments for some UK retailers too? A scan down their Twitter feed and it seems like a lot of people are shocked that Klarna has their data.
Payment gateways should be transparent (in fact the whole point is that they are!). Say for example you are on JD Sports website and want to buy something. As far as you are concerned, you are making a payment to JD Sports, you don’t need to know who all the middle men are, who, for example, do fraud scrubbing. It is likely detailed in their terms somewhere though.
My company sells goods online, and I deal with our merchant accounts in the USA. Between you entering your details and getting an ‘approved’ message on your screen, your data has been processed through several organisations
(This is not a defence of Klarna messing up of course).
The transaction descriptions are “Klarna * [Retailer Name]”; Monzo parses these as it does for similar payment processors (like PayPal), showing [Retailer Name] in the feed.
"I’m emotionally upset when I hear comparisons to Wonga. "Klarna is very different. We’ve been fighting the bank establishment for years.
Oh boo hoo. Your business model is extracting money from people who are spending beyond their means (and in that I include people who use it one day before payday).
The thing is, because they have peoples card details they tend to get the money back. So they’ll say we don’t lend to those who can’t afford it.
However, the displacement of funds caused has significant effects on the repayment of other creditors and indeed basic household bills and I see this very regularly at work.
It’s a cliche, but everyone’s grandparents (and great-grandparents, if you’re Gen Z) were wary of buying on the ‘never never’. It’s a trap, unless you’re good with your money.
When your business is essentially promising more sales for shops, where does the CEO think that extra money is coming from?
Another thing with this buy now pay later (especially if used extensively) is that it looks cruddy on your bank statement
If your statements need to be reviewed as part of a finance application I’d tend to avoid it, raises the same eyebrows and necessity to probe as online gambling from my experience of hands on review processes
If you’re loaded and just using it for the hell of it, then no issues I suppose
I agree, I really don’t think these are always bad.
I’ve got my iPhone on finance. I could have bought it outright, but I put the money in a pot and now it comes from there each month and earns me a few pence in the process over the year.
I seem to have (at least temporarily) blacklisted myself with Klarna
I’ve only ever used it when buying clothes online, which I’ve done quite a bit over the last year and a half or so. In particular, often try a couple of things/sizes and then return the one(s) I don’t want - so it saves me having to pay upfront and wait for a refund.
Just tried to buy a few t-shirts and some shorts for summer (total value about £40), and was told to “use another method/Klarna wasn’t available for me right now”…something like that. This also happened 1/2 months ago, whenever I last bought something.
The first time I thought maybe it was just temporary and I already had a few things I hadn’t paid off (and had snoozed them so they’d been on there for over a month), so thought perhaps they didn’t want me incurring more until I paid it off. Although we’re still not talking huge sums (maybe close to £100 as I bought a jacket in two sizes before returning one).
But now it’s happened again…seems like they’ve decided they don’t want to lend to me.
Not even a complaint, can ovi use a credit card if I want to try and return before incurring cost, but just interesting that I’ve somehow made myself too risky/unappealing to Klarna lol.
