Shop Direct won't freeze buy now pay later interest!

aalexandram

Hi

I am on a Debt Management Plan through Stepchange. I owe approximately £2700 to Shop Direct (Very) and they are going to charge me £450 interest next month for a 'Buy Now Pay Later' purchase.

I currently pay £20 a month through the DMP to them so it will take me at least another 2.5 years to pay off this extra interest.

They say they have frozen the 'account' interest which I didn't realise I was paying...and this is at 50% APR!! Prior to entering the DMP I never paid any interest as I always paid the BNPL payments on time. I was advised today that apparently customers have to pay an account interest on top of the BNPL interest - so 2 lots of interest!!! I can't believe I didn't know this!

Anyway, they said the cannot freeze BNPL interest as they don't have the power to. I am sure someone there can do something! Apparently they can only freeze 'account interest',

Please help - is there a genuine reason as to why BNPL interest cannot be frozen?! They are plunging me further and further into debt and I started the DMP in June at £44k

I feel helpless.

sourcrates

Hi,

Yes, you agreed to pay it when you accepted the goods.

You can pay for the BNPL goods before the interest kicks in, if you don’t, then the interest is payable.

Creditors are under no obligation to freeze interest, and once you have accepted the terms of the agreement, they can’t freeze it on BNPL items.

You must of chosen to pay using interest bearing credit terms, as there normal credit is interest free.

Hard to bear when your in financial difficulty, but they are doing nothing wrong unfortunately.

aalexandram

sourcrates wrote: »

Hi,

Yes, you agreed to pay it when you accepted the goods.

You can pay for the BNPL goods before the interest kicks in, if you don’t, then the interest is payable.

Creditors are under no obligation to freeze interest, and once you have accepted the terms of the agreement, they can’t freeze it on BNPL items.

You must of chosen to pay using interest bearing credit terms, as there normal credit is interest free.

Hard to bear when your in financial difficulty, but they are doing nothing wrong unfortunately.

I understand that they do not have to freeze interest, but in most cases creditors will freeze interest and all other creditors have frozen interest.

It's the fact that they said as a company, they are unable to freeze interest on BNPL orders. I don't understand if there is a reason specific to BNPL orders regardless of company - or if this is just them. I don't see how it is different from a credit card etc. and why it being BNPL makes any difference.

sourcrates

Well for the reasons I stated above, you could try writing to them, bypass the monkeys on the phones, see if they change tack.

If not, i’m afraid your stuck with it, only other way to deal with it, is to stop paying, allow th3 debt to be sold on, then make a settlement offer.