Buy now, pay dearly? (update)
Planet Money
NPR
4.6 • 29.8K Ratings
🗓️ 12 November 2025
⏱️ 25 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
(Note: A version of this episode originally ran in 2022.)
Every time you shop online and make it to the checkout screen, you see those colorful pastel buttons at the bottom. Affirm. Klarna. Afterpay. Asking: Do you want to split your payment into interest-free installments? No credit check needed. Get what you want, right now.
That temptation got shoppers like Amelia Schmarzo into some money trouble. Back in 2022, she maxed out her credit card after a month of buying now and paying later. She’s not alone. Buy now, pay later is everywhere now. And you can finance almost anything with it. Your clothes, your furniture … even your lips.
But if these companies don’t charge interest, how do they make money? In short, people buy more stuff using these services and so sellers are willing to pay up. Which makes buy now, pay later, something of a threat to credit card companies. Cue the tussle for your impulse-buying clicks.
Today on the show, we find out how the companies work, who’s most likely to use these services and who’s getting a good deal. And a warning: those little loans will soon be on your credit report.
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This episode was produced by Emma Peaslee, engineered by Josh Newell and edited by Molly Messick. Our update was reported by Vito Emanuel, produced by Willa Rubin, engineered by Gilly Moon and edited by our executive producer, Alex Goldmark.
Music: Universal Music Production - "Retro Funk," "Comin' Back For More," "Reactive Emotion," and "EAT."
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is Planet Money from NPR. |
| 0:06.2 | This is the story of how Amelia Schmarzo fell into a kind of rabbit hole, one that involved a lot of online shopping. |
| 0:14.1 | But the story isn't about the stuff she bought as much as the new way she found to pay for that stuff. |
| 0:19.9 | It starts a couple years ago in the spring of |
| 0:22.1 | 2020 when Amelia found herself, like so many of us, locked down at home, bored, scared, going a little stir crazy. |
| 0:30.4 | I was like, who am I? Like, what is going on? Like, oh my gosh, did I hit a midlife crisis at the age of 20? |
| 0:36.4 | I was like, I need to find new passions |
| 0:38.1 | that I can, new hobbies to keep myself busy. So Amelia's a junior in college. She's living in an |
| 0:43.3 | apartment in San Diego and she started doing these at-home exercise videos that were made by |
| 0:48.2 | influencers she saw on social media. Good morning, everyone, and welcome back to my channel. |
| 0:53.6 | I have three pound, 10 pound, and twenty pound weights. |
| 0:57.2 | I, like, swear these are what makes your butt grow. |
| 1:00.9 | And then I found influencers who follow these influencers, and so that is how I kind of gone |
| 1:06.4 | to the realm of getting influenced by influencers. |
| 1:10.4 | That's how you fell under the influence. Absolutely. Amelia says the lives of getting influenced by influencers. That's how you fell under the influence. |
| 1:12.4 | Absolutely. |
| 1:13.6 | Amelia says the lives of these trendy jet-setting zoomers just felt so glamorous. |
| 1:19.1 | And she's like, maybe if I get the right clothes and accessories, maybe my life could be more |
| 1:22.9 | like that. |
| 1:23.8 | I mean, we've all been there. |
| 1:25.1 | They look pretty. |
| 1:26.5 | They look confident. |
... |
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