A woman on Youth Allowance ended up with $8,000 debt. Do buy now, pay later companies do enough to protect young people?

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Some estimates say 60 per cent of BNPL users are aged under 35. Experts say the service has too few compliance checks and protections for young people.

Unlike credit cards or bank loans, these products ask for little information from its users when signing up.

"It also leaves the door open for the situations of coercion where someone's making an account on someone else's behalf, when they probably wouldn't want to be or shouldn't be." "How is it possible for a young woman on a Youth Allowance of $522 a fortnight to end up with $8,000 of BNPL debt?" Fiona Guthrie, chief executive of Financial Counselling Australia, asks.Often it's meant that when it came to choosing which debts to pay off first, the related fees for credit repayments weren't a priority.[credit card repayments were] lowest on the consumers' pecking order of 'I want to pay this'," he says.

 

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Manage your money and win. Learn how to budget.

‘Buy now, pay later regulation essential to protect young Australians from debt’. Even ordinary people should realise that if they borrow, they need to repay.

Afterpay don't do 8k limits.

My wife ended up with a $78,000 debt, which was originally found we were not at fault. We forwarded request for ministerial investigation to Shorten, who promptly forwarded it to centrelink, who did a ‘Self investigation’, found they’d done everything ‘right’,,,,still owe $78K

The ABC is Absolute Bull💩 Crap! None of you so called reporters could lie straight in bed.

If only there was some type of learning institution we could send young people to where they could learn life skills like managing finances and budgeting.

This is beyond maximum available balances for both Afterpay, ZipPay etc combined

Bad luck for her not being able to manage her finances 🤷‍♂️🤷‍♂️🤷‍♂️

No such thing as a free lunch. Economics 101. She needs financial counselling.

Nek minut, lefties ask why business reluctant to give any credit to young/old/poor… AusPol

Greed is the devil.

Silly question!

People don't just 'end up' in debt. I'm on DSP and if it wasn't for ZIP, I'd not have been able to build a new computer last year, a unit that cost me less than $1500 which I've already paid off. Now they want to punish me because someone else didn't learn responsibility.

mmmmm or should people start taking ownership of what they can and can’t 🤦‍♂️

Looks like it's time for them to get a job and pay it off.

Society today…… it’s always someone else’s fault. No accountability.

The people that cry its not their fault they spent money they don't have because institutions let them borrow it, are the same ones crying financial institutions won't lend them money for houses and cars, as more of this happens the harder it will get for the ones having a go

They are predatory yes and need more regulation but some blame must be placed on either schools for not providing adequate economic literacy or the young person for not paying attention.

“Ended up in debt”… oh I think she knew how she got there. 😉

So a 19 year old adult got into bad debt. It happens. Many thousands are about to get into bad debt as well when their mortgage comes off fixed interest rate, if not already. Carry on.

She was let down by the woke education system that didn't teach her about reality

That’s her own fault.

I don’t think “protecting” financially vulnerable people is compatible with the business model.

They are 100 times better than credit cards.

There's this thing called responsibility, it's an interesting concept that many seem to be abandoning.🙄

Well, if you ask me, they should be teaching fiscal acumen in schools. Then debt like this probably wouldn't occur.

Try looking at the root of the problem, her youth allowance instead of playing nanny to others and telling them what they can or can't have.

How about schools spend more time educating the kids about money and less of the woke stuff instead?

It's difficult, if not impossible, to make businesses exercise social responsibility of their own volition. All providers of credit should be incorporated into the National Credit Act , the legislation designed to ensure credit and lending facilities engage in safe practice.

It's important that people DON'T take responsibility for themselves, but find someone else to BLAME. It's worked for Women and Alphabets and is currently looking the goods for Indigenous.

Self accountability 🤷🏿‍♂️

No and hence why the sector needs to be regulated under the NCCP

Protect yourself.

Do companies giving out interest attached loans as their primary business model care about the debt they put their customers in? Wow, 😲 I think thats a no, but I'm going to read this analysis just to confirm.

No. It shouldn't be allowed. Unconscionable conduct.

From themselves you mean

Australia is riddled with shonky 'financial products'... Who let them in? We didn't used to have all these shonky debt arrangements Who allowed this? I'm guessing LNP laws allowed this? Hope it wasn't Labor, but they bend to corporate greed too 😔

Also these businesses charge retailers high fees for the privilege of selling on these accounts - which is contributing to inflation we are All paying for! 😠😠

No, they are predatory. Financial literacy should be taught at school

But bank default rates on credit card rates of up to 28% is a ok. Banks just want the monopoly and for BNPL businesses shut down.

No

They are what used to be known as loan shark

how can youths obtain loans without a guarantors signature? You can rest assured if the loan was dependant upon her parents / guardian signing as guarantors for the loan, she wouldn't be in debt with the loan.

she should've learnt self control

Do young people learn anything about self control? If you don't have the money don't buy it on credit.

Just bring back laybys. We're these people not taught as children to go without unless you have cash?

the credit card regulator got confused and did nothing

Need a few hyphens in your headline.

We have Responsible Service of Alcohol laws but we don't have Responsibile Lending laws.

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