A student in Leeds has got into major debt after using a ‘Buy Now Pay Later’ (BNPL) scheme.
It comes as there have recently been calls for BNPL apps to be better regulated before the Christmas shopping season, to avoid consumers getting into debt they won’t easily escape.
Lending companies, such as Klarna and Clearpay, allow shoppers to buy products with a smaller upfront fee, paying the rest later on, usually in installments.
A Leeds Beckett University student, who wishes to remain anonymous, used a ‘Buy Now Pay Later’ app to purchase items he couldn’t immediately afford.
He said: “I’m a student and I don’t really have a lot of money to spend on clothes, shoes, whatever, so I used an app so I could pay it back later on.”
“It’s easy to overspend on these apps and I could even gamble or get food on them – I ended up in debt and now we’re looking at how it’s affecting my credit score.”
“I’d just tell any students to just stay away from it and be careful.”
Citizens Advice research has found one in eight younger users of BNPL have been chased by debt collector in the last year.
In our own survey conducted on social media by @poppydoherty, 22% of young people said they do use a BNPL app.
Lorna Kirkpatrick, a student who answered the poll , said “I don’t use Buy Now Pay Later apps because you don’t really think about what you’re buying or the price of anything.”
“You just buy things thoughtlessly without thinking how much money you actually owe.”
Many popular high street and online retailers now offer BNPL to shoppers.
According to the Guardian, Labour MP Stella Creasy called on retailers to stop using BNFL until it is properly regulated, during a parliamentary debate on Tuesday.
