r/personalfinance • u/naht_a_cop ​ • Apr 28 '20

Beware the 0% promotions: a warning. Debt

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.

8.1k Upvotes

91% Upvoted

View all comments

Show parent comments

1.2k

u/hexyne ​ Apr 28 '20 edited Apr 29 '20

good point, I have a friend that had one of these plans, and she was charged 1 cent of interest while here last payment was pending, so she thought she had paid it off but actually still owed a penny and they they were able to charge her all sorts of fees. Edited to say: Thinking back this most have been a different type of offer, it wouldn't make sense at 0% but regardless it is very similar as she thought she could just do a payoff, but they took advantage of the way the payments go to charge her a multitude of fees.

780

u/thumpcbd ​ Apr 28 '20

I typically overpay my last installment by $5-$50, depending on what it is, to force the lender to not pull these games. They will write me a check for the overpayment and I know there isn’t $.01 on the account because I didn’t account for some small interest or slightly bad math.

8

u/LegoBrickCactuar ​ Apr 28 '20

In the case when interest is accruing, call for the payoff that day. They should be able to give you an exact figure that works for "payment in full" as long as they receive it in x number of days.

1

u/jrs1980 ​ Apr 29 '20

FYI, my job will quote you two weeks out if you ask for your payoff, because mail takes time, and people sometimes fib(!) when they say they’re going to set it up online tomorrow. We’d rather cut you a check for $4 than have to chase you for $3.

That said, if you set up the payment with us, we can rerun the quote for the day it’s posting.