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Comment by LigmaYC | Hacker News Reader

Still not a scam, although I agree that it's not ethical to push this on impressionable kids who would probably choose to go in debt for some new clothes.

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Whilst it may not strictly be fraud, another common usage of the word 'scam', is 'to deprive of by deceit'. If it's unethical, then it's likely misleading - a form of deceit. You don't necessarily need to meet some legal line for it to be a scam or not. It just needs to be misleading, and capable of causing harm.

If you sign a contract and then can't abide by the terms of the contract, you haven't been scammed.

This is specifically not the case - loan sharks are frequently punished for creating contracts that are not reasonable, and cannot be upheld by law as it violates consumer protections. One of which is that contracts are required to be reasonably understood by all participating parties.

BNPL providers are held to far higher standards than Credit Card, Personal Loan, or Payday Loan companies. I'm not sure I understand the HN addiction to attacking them.

Unlike all the examples above, Afterpay doesn't charge interest, has capped late payment fees, and has a very low debt ceiling. It's the perfect way for younger people to learn how to manage debt.

If a young person is learning to manage debt with them, that necessarily implies that they don't yet comprehend what taking debt means and cannot reasonably be expected to fully understand the consequences - which may make the contract invalid.

This definitely isn't enough to make the contract invalid, however you could prove every BNBL business wrong and put them out of business if you find a court that agrees with you.

But it's not misleading or deceitful.

If it's not misleading, then it wouldn't be impacting "impressionable kids". They're misled to believe that there won't be a negative consequence.

The marketing exists outside of the "buy now, pay later" scheme. "Buy now, pay later" is not a scam.

The very phrasing, "buy now, pay later" is predicated upon the implication that it provides a benefit without a negative.

Where does it imply a benefit without a negative? The "pay later" part is clearly stated

"Pay later" is a benefit, to the audience we're discussing, as it means "not now".

Young adults actually have processing problems over impulse control [0], and so cannot see any drawback to "not now" - in fact they likely do not have a way to fully conceptualise that something will occur in the future.

All "buy now, pay later" translates to is "instant gratification", nothing further.

[0] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2964271/

Lacking impulse control does not mean that the entire concept of "pay later" is a scam.

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