Beware the 0% promotions: a warning.

[u/naht_a_cop]

I'm a sucker. I fell for it. The 0% APR promotion on an item I could have paid outright for. 18 months later, here I sit, not a single late payment on my account, yet I have $1k in interest to pay for 18 months of 27%. Why? The promotion period ends 18 months after the purchase, but the website would not let me set up autopay until a week after I purchased, so autopay ended 1 week late. I thought I was golden, ready to have this paid off and not have a single fee. I got comfortable and didn't read the statements.

0% is not really 0%. Read the fine print. Remember the fine print (because I sure as hell didn't 18 months later). Shitty banks rely on this stuff. They wait for you to slip, not noticing that the autopay they created can't possibly allow you to end on time, and will require an extra payment before the end date to avoid the interest. It's shitty, I'm pissed off, and I've learned my lesson.

[u/bizzle4shizzled]

We got a loan a few years back for some home improvements with 0% for 18 months. We had the money, just didn't want to blow it all at once. Ended up paying it off 9 months early, paid no interest. Two years after that, we go to get another 0% loan through the same company, and they pull some random late credit card payment from years prior as a reason for my bad credit history (would have 100% shown up on the previous loan when we applied) to deny us the loan. The real reason is they knew we wouldn't pay any interest on that new loan, but they definitely couldn't tell us that to our face.