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Klarna for rent (media.piefed.zip)
submitted 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) by inari@piefed.zip to c/memes@lemmy.world
 
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[–] mattyroses@lemmy.today 77 points 2 days ago
[–] UltraGiGaGigantic@lemmy.ml 18 points 1 day ago

Gatekeeping basic necessities behind paywalls is economic violence.

[–] Avicenna@programming.dev 49 points 2 days ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

"Can't pay rent? Don't worry we have an even more humiliating solution for you!"

[–] PhoenixDog@lemmy.world 18 points 1 day ago

Can't pay your monthly rent? We can pay it for you with a monthly payment schedule.

[–] yermaw@sh.itjust.works 15 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Could I get a loan to help me pay a klarna instalment?

How deeply can we dig this hole?

[–] nialv7@lemmy.world 9 points 1 day ago

you are not gonna believe what the banks did in 2008

[–] village604@adultswim.fan 7 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I knew a guy in college that kept getting new credit cards to pay off other credit cards he had maxed out. I wonder what his credit looks like now.

[–] janus2@lemmy.zip 4 points 1 day ago

that's me, been trapped in that cycle since I had to pay several months' rent with credit card during covid

aside from some dings due to high credit usage, my score is good. mainly because i have a shit load of cards i opened years ago, so my average account age is high.

I'm not a particularly responsible spender and have a shit ton of debt, but since I make the CC companies a bunch of money by paying balance transfer fees all the time, I'm profitable. So my score is high.

What a stupid world

[–] hungryphrog@lemmy.blahaj.zone 17 points 1 day ago

coming soon: Americans are fucking drowning in debt

neofeudalism here we come!

[–] ideonek@piefed.social 34 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Richest nation in the world.

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[–] Lyra_Lycan@lemmy.blahaj.zone 101 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (14 children)

bro. Fucking -- Think about it. Klarna pay in 3 installments divide the cost by 3 and take payments monthly. Month A, you pay one third. Month B you pay one third of months A and B. By month C onwards you're consistently paying three thirds or 100% of the rent. You'd only defer yourself the value of one month's rent over the span of two months. Pointless.

[–] cdf12345@lemmy.zip 73 points 2 days ago (1 children)

That’s how fucked our economy is. There is a significant number of people so close to the edge that buying an extra 10 days before eviction is the final gasp before becoming homeless.

[–] chonglibloodsport@lemmy.world 25 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Yes. Previously the alternative was payday loans, which charged exorbitant interest rates.

People have tried to ban these sorts of predatory loan businesses before but it usually forces people into the hands of organized crime loan sharks who charge even more exorbitant interest and exact brutal punishments on people who don’t pay up.

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[–] 1984@lemmy.today 8 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Klarna is really pissing me off. I got a refund from a place, and they put that money into some kind of Klarna Wallet or whatever, by default, instead of in my bank account where the money originally came from.

So I go to their stupid site, and select the option to refund to my bank account, and they are warning me this will take up to 7 days! For no other reason than they wanting my money in their account so im tied to their service.

Stay the hell away from Klarna. Im doing that from now on.

[–] SirQuack@feddit.nl 5 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Stay the hell away from Klarna

Definitely! Klarna is one of the few parties that won't cooporate when a Dutch citizen gets government mandated debt settlement. All other debt agencies settle and freeze interests as the state takes control of the debtee's finances but Klarna just stacks interests like there's no tomorrow.

The idea behind the scheme is to have the debtee get their personal affairs in order, while an agency (ngo-like) takes care and control of all finances. You get like 50 eur to spend each week but this is also for groceries and all other savings are either used to settle debts, pay rent and other subscriptions and most subscriptions are cancelled with contracts being voided left and right.

It's a very invasive, but very effective program. Klarna is, as a for-proft debt agency, not having any of it.

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[–] 14th_cylon@lemmy.zip 3 points 1 day ago (5 children)

wtf, how is that legal? if someone is obligated to pay you some refund, how can they send it to some other private business instead?

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[–] istdaslol@feddit.org 125 points 2 days ago (24 children)

People already put rent on their credit card to pay it off in chunks. This is just Klarna tapping in that market

[–] yesman@lemmy.world 86 points 2 days ago (12 children)

People already put rent on their credit card to pay it off in chunks. This is just Klarna tapping in that market

People using CC to pay rent isn't reassuring, it's more alarming. Paying for housing on short-term, high-interest credit is financial insanity and implies profound dysfunction if not desperation.

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[–] antimidas@sopuli.xyz 33 points 2 days ago (4 children)

Klarna 'bout to find out their business model doesn't work as well in the US compared to the Nordic countries and EU, as

  1. People are already up to their neck in debt, putting Klarna to the back of the queue in case there's a default
  2. Personal bankruptcy is a thing

Especially the Northern Europe personal bankruptcy is really not a thing, fuck up your finances and you're never going to see a penny you make (above what you strictly need to live) until everything has been paid back. Debt that is actively being collected also never expires.

There's a good reason Klarna's been able to thrive in this environment – getting debt from banks is quite difficult and you have added security from the draconian collections process.

In the US a company ignores credit scores at their own peril. The bankruptcy process is one of the few things that works better in the US than in e.g. my home country Finland.

[–] needanke@feddit.org 17 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Klarna is a thing in Germany as well and personal bankruptcy absolutely is a thing here [https://www.verbraucherzentrale.de/wissen/geld-versicherungen/kredit-schulden-insolvenz/privatinsolvenz-in-3-jahren-schuldenfrei-11417] so I don't know if your second point is that relevant. I'd agree on the first one though.

[–] antimidas@sopuli.xyz 11 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (2 children)

Serves me right for assuming Germans had a similarly judgemental attitude to people who have ruined their finances. Thanks for the correction.

Finns often have a very puritan attitude to debt (you should fear it like the devil), and in the common discussion it's often attributed to the ethics of the Lutheran church. That's at least partially the reason we still don't have a real personal bankruptcy option. Somewhat surprising to me that a country that shares that value system could be that forgiving to people – I'm a bit envious even 😅

Around here Klarna and other similar companies have long been seen as exploiting the fact that debt is really difficult to get through proper sources, and there's a matching draconian bunch of collections agencies to support that business model. We've mainly been trying to tackle this by regulating the process of giving out loans, instead of giving people the necessary way out and thus giving the corporations an incentive to self-regulate.

If bad credit is actually no longer possible to collect on, it ceases to be good business. Hats off to Germany for having a proper route out of predatory loans.

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[–] huppakee@piefed.social 7 points 1 day ago (1 children)

People are already up to their neck in debt, putting Klarna to the back of the queue in case there's a default

People in debt (before there is professional help) end up paying the important things first (such as rent) and then choose to pay off the debt that is most within their reach. Klarna is much more likely to be a low amount compared to their creditors.

It might be true their loans are more likely to be payed back while also they might have less to loose in case of a personal bankruptcy.

But that aside, i have no clue on whether Klarna is making a smart move. But i assume they are because companies that are both evil and stupid don't tend to come far.

[–] PolarKraken@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Eh, I dunno about that last point. "Evil" is a pretty OP strategy if you have the stomach for it, usually leaves lots of room to survive doing dumb shit. And hot DAMN greed is good at convincing people to do dumb shit!

On the one hand, don't underestimate their cunning, I do agree with that. But on the other, I've never liked the "4D chess" assumptions some folks are so willing to make (not meaning you here), it's unwise to overestimate it, too.

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[–] Evotech@lemmy.world 38 points 2 days ago

Rent money to rent apartment

Great idea

[–] Bongles@lemmy.zip 6 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Oh, by the way it's not coming soon, I could do it right now on the portal I pay my rent on. It's through Flex.

Where is Luigi when you need him?

[–] SaharaMaleikuhm@feddit.org 29 points 2 days ago (1 children)

How much later? Can I get 50 years on that cause I'm gonna take that option.

[–] RichardDegenne@lemmy.zip 8 points 2 days ago

Sell 100-year bonds to Klarna and use the money to pay your installments.

[–] rogsson@piefed.social 73 points 2 days ago

Dystopian fucking timeline. Around every corner there seemingly waits billionaires waiting to fuck ppl over

[–] floquant@lemmy.dbzer0.com 57 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Yet more proof that "richest country in the world" doesn't mean what Americans think it means.

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[–] Washedupcynic@lemmy.ca 5 points 1 day ago

When it comes to making a purchase of like $500 - $1000, I use affirm. My credit score is 715, and I get a rate of 16% APR. My credit cards won't give me a lower rate than 30%. I only make 1 purchase like this per year. In 2024 I used it to by an electric bike. In 2025 I used it to purchase all the parts I needed to build a new PC. When I do this, I usually have about half of the money for the thing I'm buying already saved.

The fact like services like this are now doing rental payments is absolutely a direct result of the late stage capitalism hellscape caused by ballooning housing prices and stagnant wages. The fact that housing has been turned into a commodity to make rich people richer is disgusting.

All that aside, these services can be a much better alternative to a credit card when used responsibly and you plan well with your budget.

[–] nexguy@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago

I need to Klarna my Afterpay payment that I will then Klarna that payment in which I will Afterpay that one...... all the way down

[–] ILikeBoobies@lemmy.ca 23 points 2 days ago (10 children)

Financing is bad at the best of times.

[–] scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech 24 points 2 days ago (7 children)

No, it's not. Financing is a great tool, and used wisely and with knowledge of interest rates and total cost, can elevate you quite a bit in life.

This however is predatory lending, and it should not be used ever.

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[–] AeonFelis@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Buying groceries in installments is already bad enough, but if you are very good at lying to yourself and very bad at the detecting your own lies, you may be able to convince yourself that you are not going to need to buy groceries for the next four months.

But even this twisted kind of logic does not apply to rent.

Why do I keep getting surprised every time a new height of dumbness gets launched?

[–] Riverside@reddthat.com 4 points 1 day ago

It's not about dumb clients, everyone knows they have to spy groceries and rent, but being between literally being unable to buy groceries and having groceries and debt, many will choose the latter. It's predatory

[–] skulkbane@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Man i love credit V2... If anyone is looking for me I'll be out in the forest pretending to be a slug or something.

[–] SpiceDealer@lemmy.dbzer0.com 26 points 2 days ago (11 children)

I'm no Maoist but those 'land reforms' are starting to sound pretty good right now.

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[–] MrKoyun@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago

they will make you poor to get rich, and they will get rich from your poorness.

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