Very buy now pay later

curlyshirl76

Can anyone help me in understanding the Very buy now pay later interest charges. In september I noticed i had 2 BNPL deals coming to an end, one that month with interests of £136 being charged and another in November with interests of £135. Thinking that my DD would have taken care of this I was told on the phone that no it would not as you need to request that payments go towards BNPL. Realising my error I had made 2 large payments of £100 and £80 that month and so had asked that those payments be put towards the following BNPL that was due as i had already been charged the 1st lot, the lady on the phone said she would raise a request for it. On my next statement when i wanted to pay off the remainder of the BNPL which at full cost was £369.99 and thinking id paid £180 towards it i was told the full amount was still due, i was taken aback and wasnt given a reasonable explanation as to why that was.

In October I scraped together what money i could and paid 2 payments £41.11 and £149, I couldnt pay anymore and on a phone call was told that the interest paid would be on the balance that was left so when my next statement came i was shocked to see that they had charged me 3 lots of interests. THE FULL amount of BNPL interest of £135, a £41.11 interest which I have no idea what that is for and a further £13.34 which i presume is for normal catalogue items not on BNPL so a total of £190.15 of interest. 3 phone calls later and no one from Very can give me an answer to my question as to why im being charged so much especially when the BNPL is not the full amount. Rather than putting me through to the relevant team that deal with this, they refused to give me the number and just said it was on a letter they sent me which has not been received.
If anyone can shed some light on how interest and repayments work on BNPL id be grateful, I feel like ive paid out loads recently only to be charged ridiculous amounts of interests anyway and that company have not given me correct advise on ways to avoid these large interests. Any help would be appreciated - sorry for the ramble!!

Ben8282

I believe that you have to repay the full amount of the BNPL before the due date in order for it to be interest free and partial payment will not achieve this.
However the amounts of interest that you say you were charged seem to be somewhat excessive. For example, the BNPL that you were charged £136 interest on. can you please advise the value of the purchase and the length of time outstanding?

sourcrates

Hi,

Let’s say you buy an item on BNPL, the item costs £300, but has 12 months interest free option, so if you pay the full cash price of £300 before the 12 months ends, that’s all you pay.

If, for any reason you don’t pay before the 12 months are up, then the interest you would have been charged over those 12 months, is added to the debt, this is usually around 39.9% APR.

You then continue to accrue interest on the outstanding balance, at the advertised rate, until the debt is fully repaid.

If you have other items on your account also accruing interest, it can get very confusing, you must specify to Very when making payment, which item the payment is meant to be credited to, but this is very easy to do yourself using your online account.

This is all explained in the terms and conditions that nobody ever reads :

https://www.very.co.uk/bnpl.page

Willing2Learn

I believe that interest is calculated from the date of the original order, compounded every 28 days during the delayed payment period (so you are charged interest on interest) @ 39.9% per annum.


I also think that if you want to make payment to a BNPL transaction, you must allocate your payment to that specific BNPL transaction. You can do this online by finding the specific BNPL transaction and making payment to it, or by phoning Very and telling their advisor which BNPL transaction you wish to make your payment to.

curlyshirl76

@Ben8282 The full cost of the BNPL was £369.99 over 12 months which was due this month. I made payments in October bringing the amount down to £179.99 by 30th October. Whilst I knew there would be interest charged, I didnt think they would charge the full amount. Bare in mind that the Very refused to put 2 payments towards the BNPL which I had requested which I made the previous month of £180 - this would have had my account cleared.

jonesMUFCforever

curlyshirl76 wrote: »

@Ben8282 The full cost of the BNPL was £369.99 over 12 months which was due this month. I made payments in October bringing the amount down to £179.99 by 30th October. Whilst I knew there would be interest charged, I didnt think they would charge the full amount. Bare in mind that the Very refused to put 2 payments towards the BNPL which I had requested which I made the previous month of £180 - this would have had my account cleared.

Would it have cleared all of your account or just BNPL? Would you have other items outstanding not on BNPL which needed a payment towards?
I also think it would have been difficult for VERY to backdate payments already made.
I gave up years ago with companies such as Very etc and now use a credit card with a purchases offer or balance transfer - much easier to understand..

Ben8282

I'm afraid to say that the amount of interest charged appears to be correct.
Am concerned through by your statement that Very REFUSED to put two payments towards this BNPL when you requested them to do so.
What was the reason for this refusal?
Why did you make the payments if Very refused to apply them as was being asked?
What were these payments actually applied against?

Willing2Learn

curlyshirl76 wrote: »

...Very refused to put 2 payments towards the BNPL which I had requested which I made the previous month of £180 - this would have had my account cleared.

If you had requested one of their advisors, via telephone to allocate your payment toward your BNPL transaction, (in accordance with Very's terms & conditions), then it would seem that you have grounds to make an official written complaint.

deanos

If you use BNPL in future then you can allocate payments using the online account, its better than relying on phone operatives

My account > buy now pay later > make a BNPL payment

you can then see each item and pay off in full or a partial amount to each item, every statement you get also has a summary of a cash amount and when it needs to be paid by, interest is charged from the day you order

Graham1982

Hello:

This is not meant to be an unhelpful statement but buy now, pay later is only good if you know you can clear the balance before the date that the interest free period ends.

I am not in any position to preach as I have credit card debt (no defaults ) which I am now paying off.
That being said, I would go out on a limb here and say that companies such as Very probably very much look forward to people not clearing their balance so that they can charge that ridiculous rate of interest for whatever the item is/was.

Again, probably not helpful but let's say you bought a TV from Very (do Very even sell TVs?) You paid £300 for it interest free. You don't clear the balance so if I am correct, you pay £417.00.

Was it worth it? Just buy a TV 2nd hand off of eBay for far less and save the headache.

Graham

glennstar

I thought it was worth mentioning that there are some alternative entrants into the BNPL market, such as Zilch that might be worth a look. Unlike Klarna and Afterpay / Clearpay these new entrants into the market do not charge interest or fees, instead, getting their revenue from the retailer.

I'm not suggestion these are necessarily a like for like comparison. Obviously the propositions differ, terms, rates, durations and so on.

Whilst I am acquainted with the BNPL market, I am in no way affiliated with any of the companies mentioned herein.