There is a new scam out there that will destroy a lot of people.
It is the "Buy Now, Pay Later" (BNPL) loan scheme.
I bet you don't know how it REALLY works and who will get left holding the bag (hint: not the poor people taking out the loans).
It works like this:
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Someone who can't afford to buy something, wants it and is offered a BNPL deal. They can just buy it now and pay it off in "4 easy installments" or whatever.
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There is no credit check. There is no income verification. Just, "Do you want it? Yes? OK, you got it -- NOW!"
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It can be for anything: groceries, clothes, furniture, whatever. This is not put on a credit or debit card. It is a separate loan. No collateral, just a signature.
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It is not reported on any credit bureau, so other lenders do not know how much of this debt that a credit applicant for a regular loan might have.
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Many of the people who are getting these loans have no ability and/or no intention of ever paying it back. They just want the stuff -- now.
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The loan is arranged by an affiliate (Affirm is a company that is the big player in this). The affiliate operates the program, so that a bank can lend the money to the customer, with the retailer acting on behalf of the affiliate at the point of sale.
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Once the purchase is complete, the loan is owned by the bank.
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The bank immediately sells the loan to the affiliate, and the bank earns a fee. The bank takes no risk. The retailer also takes no risk, but does make a sale they might not have otherwise made.
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The affiliate (i.e. Affirm) then packages these loans up into collateralized debt, just like they do with Mortgage-Backed Securities. And just like during the years leading up to the mortgage melt-down, ratings agencies are grading these BNPL Collateralized Debt Obligations (CDO's) as "A paper." That is, these CDO's are rated as high-grade quality debt securities, even though the underlying assets are entirely made up of debt that was never underwritten by any standards whatsoever (no credit check, income qualifications, no collateral, etc.).
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THEN ... these CDO's are sold via Wall Street to pension funds, mutual funds, and through investment broker advisors, who advise John Q. Public to buy these as a good investment because they earn an interest rate income that is slightly more than US Treasury Bills.
Unlike some Mortgage-Backed Securities, these BNPL CDO's have ZERO chance of ever paying off in full, since the debt can be easily ignored and never paid back.
These things WILL crash at some point. Not if, but when.
The middle class retirment system will get slammed with these, as they become more and more "attractive" by offering higher and higher interest income over time.
Excellent interview and discussion on this topic:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ms10ZU9qdd4
BTW, the man on the left doing the interview has a YT channel about all the overbuilding in new construction and all the reasons why the Federal Reserve has created a ticking time bomb that will explode at some point.
It is becoming more and more clear that the central bank has orchestrated this on purpose.
First, they found an excuse to push interest rates way down and keep them there for a few years. People adjusted to this as the "new normal." Real estate prices went sky high because people could afford it with very low interest rates.
Meanwhile, they also pumped $9 trillion of fake printed money into the system, causing the massive inflation we are now seeing.
Then, the Fed found an excuse to push interest rates up very high in a short time, and keep them there. This has caused financial chaos, with the full effects yet to come.
The federal government (Congress/President) have also played a role, especially in the past 3 years, with massive increases in spending and borrowing, with the complete elimination of the debt ceiling, and with much of that spending being pumped into areas of the economy that has caused a temporary illusion of prosperty that is hiding an otherwise economy on the brink of disaster.
My personal opinion is that this is all been done by design, to wipe out the middle class. The scum cabal plans to wipe out the middle class to destroy America, so that one world government can be achieved.
We need to talk more and more about eliminating the idea of a central bank. It is the evil root of all financial manipulation.
I've seen this for a long time. I saved. Now i buy now and pay now. Then i begin saving again for the next thing. Turns out a lot of stuff i thought i needed and wanted, i didn't need or want. turns out i became more patient, and careful with my things, an able to repair them.
Yeah, I wish I had the money I wasted on things I thought I needed. It would buy more actual money.
Craigslist and Ebay those things you thought you needed, if you still have them. The sheep still waste their money on useless crap.
I'm a cyclist and Karaoke singer. I have a bikepacking tent to sell and a battery powered PA speaker I will sell. Other than that my belongings are pretty modest. A better Battery Powered PA speaker, a few year old laptop, and a 43" TV.
My wife is a Filipina and sends half her pay back home to support family. So we bought used furniture when we returned to the USA.
My wife needs to work 7.5 years more to reach 62, but I'm 11 years older than her at 65, so I want to go back and forth. From Fla, but live in Tenn, and I hate cold weather so I'll be a snowbird.
I want to recruit a band in the Philippines and entertain the old fart Expats. The young Filipinos now listen to new music, not like years ago when they listened to their parents music. So the Expats might enjoy hearing old rock and country. I'll let the band have any money because you won't get much there anyways.
We have a house in my wife's province, but its dangerous there and a long way from where the Expats are. I'd have moved back there already if it weren't for the current situation. I came back to join the fight. I'm living simple except for rent, and saving up to have a better nestegg. Not money in the bank...
A few flaws (in my view) in your logic, at least based on Affirm:
1- I've used Affirm a few times, and it always shows up in my credit report, as a revolving account. These were mid term, 12-24 months, in amounts over $1000
2- Affirm runs both soft and hard credit checks depending on the situation, and definitely runs a credit check when you first apply for an account.
3- Affirm is a public company and you can see that loan sales account for ~30% of their revenue, and they make money through many other means.
4- If you miss payments, Affirm will either report you to credit agencies or charge of the loan and send you to a collection agency
5- I've personally been declined for BNPL, and have friends who've been declined (Klarna, Paypal, Affirm) though I don't know the reasons behind it.
6- Overall, CDO debt is longer term, and higher amounts. BNPL loans are on average below $200 and in terms of weeks, not even months.
I agree is a risk, especially considering the main market is mid to low income citizens, but yet, it's still in the single digits compared to other loan types, and while it's growing, it's not as big of a risk as you are making it out to be. I personally think the scheme is geared towards loaning money to the growing portion of the population that will never be able to afford a home, a car, pay off student loans, etc.
Also personally, I think you just watched The Big Short and got creative with this post.
Man +1 to everything you said. These dorks on this wannabe youtube video have a couple of key facts very wrong.
Affirm most definitely checks your credit and reports. I have two engineer friends at Affirm and I used to work in fintech.
They also don’t sell your debt and it could not be put into a CDO because, as these chodes pointed out, there is no collateral (the C in CDO)
BNPL are great tools for people who aren’t dumb with money. Better to go after payday loan and check cashing places if you’re trying to save people from themselves.
+1 to Affirm showing on my credit report.
For those of you pushing back on this issue:
That's a really weird assumption to make, false, and a strawman. I posted my info based on the video in my post, which you probably didn't bother to watch.
But since you and a few others here seem to have had a different experience (and you all seem to think you know what you are talking about), I did a little more digging.
I think the full picture was not presented by the man in the video nor by you.
Here were the results of some digging:
https://www.investopedia.com/how-does-affirm-work-5183684
Yes and no. It seems that in some cases, it does, and in other cases it does not. Here is a website claiming to have researched several types of lenders, and in the table down the page, it says there is no credit check (at least for some types of loans, I assume):
https://www.elitepersonalfinance.com/buy-now-pay-later-no-credit-check/
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/buy-now-pay-later-loans-131358423.html
You don't think they just lend money, and then sit back and collect 0% interest for their effort, do you?
BTW, this means that if YOU have a loan through Affirm, you make your payments to Affirm and you THINK that Affirm owns the loan. But they do not. They only service it for the investors who bought the loan. This is how most mortgages work today, too.
https://thestrategystory.com/2022/02/26/how-does-affirm-make-money-business-model/
https://www.spglobal.com/marketintelligence/en/news-insights/latest-news-headlines/affirm-seeks-new-sponsor-banks-as-it-shifts-to-interest-bearing-loans-74245833
Clearly, Affirm has more than one business model for making money.
Yes, and no.
https://www.fool.com/investing/2022/03/18/should-investors-be-concerned-about-affirms-delaye/
In an interesting twist, an appeals court has ruled that these types of vehicles are legally considered to be "syndicated loans" rather than "securities," and therefore are not subject to securities laws.
https://www.ballardspahr.com/insights/alerts-and-articles/2023/08/second-circuit-affirms-syndicated-loans-are-not-securities
Yes.
CDO's vs. CLO's.
I wrote "Collateralized Debt Obligations" (CDO's) in my OP, because that is what it looked like to me.
But I did not know about the court decision or how they are marketed to investors.
Turns out, they are actually called "Collateralized Loan Obligations" (CLO's).
https://money.usnews.com/investing/articles/collateralized-loan-obligations-etfs-to-consider
That article is not specific, the the video in my OP stated that the average credit of these borrowers is sub-prime ("C" or "D" type of credit), but the CLO's are packaged and rated as "A."
This is the exact same scenario as what happened in the mortgage melt-down, which ended up with a lot of loan fraud and crazy approvals of loans that should never have been done, even where fraud did not occur. These were also "C" and "D" type of credit but the collateralization gave the ratings agencies cover to grade the investments as "A." But they were never worthy of those ratings.
So, in summary, I see the info in the video as more or less accurate. It did not include a deep dive, but rather gave a summary.
The only question is: What is the real risk?
More and more people will be using these loans because a recession is coming, due to all the reckless spending by the fed gov't and fed reserve. As more and more people use these loans to pay for food and basic things, and as Wall Street sees this as a great way to make money and push off the risk to an unsuspecting public as a "good investment," this will become a bigger issue over time.
The mortgages were not a problem ... until they were.
Since Affirm and similar companies say they use "modernized risk models" and do not disclose what that means, we have no idea what the real risk is.
Just like taking a vaccine with a mystery drug cocktail.
Good luck with that!
LOL
I agree on the credit check and credit report aspects. The dastardly parts of the described BNPL scheme that really separates it from other known schemes - the no questions asked part - can be proven false. The whole thing's disgusting, but just another card from the same deck IMO.
I use Affirm and Afterpay. You are only charged interest if you choose the monthly option. The biweekly PMT for 4 payments is interest free. I assume they make money from the retailer.
Well, seeing as I will be someone paying off the bailout via my taxes, I might as well get one of these loan thingys so that I even out my balance sheet.
1988, in the college chow hall, freshman year. It was the day I ran into credit trouble.They had tables set up for every credit card. It took me 20 years to get out of it.
I got my first credit card in the 1990s in college as well.
I never used it until I ran out of money out on the town one night and took $20 out from an ATM. I think it was a $5 fee for cash advances.
Imagine my surprise when I got hit with an additional $25 fee for using an "out of network" ATM.
Paid my ~$50 and cut the card up. Never used one again for years.
I don't think that will be what happens when the Fed is destroyed and the US gets back to sound money. In fact I think those that make those deals will eat the losses when the US defaults on all the Feds debt.
There is a good possibility in my opinion that personal debts get reset with no interest or absolved. I don't believe the personal income tax is going to survive for long after the IRS is dissolved.
A Silver Jubilee for all but the perps, possible return of income taxes illegally taken.. The IRS becomes the federal sales tax collector on luxury items.
This is a nice explanation. Thanks. I always wondered why someone would buy shitty loans but now I see it's foisted on the unsuspecting public.
As stated in "The Big Short" these CDOs are dog shit wrapped in cat shit and I'll go further: all that wrapped in rhino poop...
The cabal and all the isms (except capitalism) have the hidden primary purpose of destroying the middle class. They fear the middle class. The goal is neo-feudalism.
You, are correct Sir
Loan sharking, no doubt.
But, it is not a new game. This game has been played for millennia. And you know it as:
I borrowed a lot of money on CC at 0 APR, but have been diligently paying it off. I want to be in on the debt train when it crashes. CC debt is at an all time high. Sadly I'm running out of 0 APR CC to apply for.
I also have to pay a bit in Income tax each year. If it all comes crumbling down. Kek
Thanks for sharing!
Nobody Special Finance also had a great video on this back in January:
Buy Now Pay Later Loans Are Worse Than You Think | Nobody Special Finance
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c8h6XKIhZeY
They are short on many stonks,and that's a much bigger problem for them.
The federal reserve along with DC has played this game for a longtime now. DC borrows money it can't ever pay back and sells the debt to pension funds, etc....
It's a house of cards tittering on the brink of destruction....
So there's value in debt. . . . who knew?
Can I have an Affirm loan for a million please?
No worries, I be able to pay dis wit my reparations money. Or de Gubmint will jus forgive my dets.
sounds a lot like......a credit card?!??
Very good post fren, out here in Australia a company called afterpay recently went public and is the darling of the investors and all they do is this. Make a lot of sense from this post.
I would say that there is a double edged sword at okay here. Cabal wants to use this to destroy the middle class but the WHs have probably weaponided this as part of their controlled demolition. Would be interesting to see how this plays out but fits with the over all of pushing the Fed to the point of implosion.
Aka forcing the bubble to burst.