I used to work at Best Buy waaay back in the day. They would advertise stuff like buy a $1500 TV and get 0% interest for 2 years. But the fine print was exactly like you just described. You could make 23 of 24 payments on time, but if you were late they would hit you with 20+% interest compounding based off the entire loan amount.
So if you missed just one payment you’d get hit with like a $500 bill.
Credit company advertised 2 years interest free. The scheduled repayments kicked off either a fortnight or a month (can’t remember exactly, this was over 20 years ago) from the purchase date. This made the last payment fall outside of the interest free period, causing you to pay for all of the interest that would have been accrued in that period.
Making one extra payment probably would have been enough to clear it before the 2 year mark.
But now that you mention it, that’s kind of how the Best Buy deal worked. They didn’t automatically split up the payments for you like a car or home loan. It was a credit card, so you could pay the minimum balance every month. But paying the minimum balance wasn’t enough to actually pay off the whole thing in 2 years.
I used to work at Best Buy waaay back in the day. They would advertise stuff like buy a $1500 TV and get 0% interest for 2 years. But the fine print was exactly like you just described. You could make 23 of 24 payments on time, but if you were late they would hit you with 20+% interest compounding based off the entire loan amount.
So if you missed just one payment you’d get hit with like a $500 bill.
Buddy of mine was stung in a similar manner.
Credit company advertised 2 years interest free. The scheduled repayments kicked off either a fortnight or a month (can’t remember exactly, this was over 20 years ago) from the purchase date. This made the last payment fall outside of the interest free period, causing you to pay for all of the interest that would have been accrued in that period.
Making one extra payment probably would have been enough to clear it before the 2 year mark.
Ooo that feels like it should be illegal.
But now that you mention it, that’s kind of how the Best Buy deal worked. They didn’t automatically split up the payments for you like a car or home loan. It was a credit card, so you could pay the minimum balance every month. But paying the minimum balance wasn’t enough to actually pay off the whole thing in 2 years.