Do any companies offer "layaway" anymore? It seems almost quaint and responsible in the landscape of "pay in 4" (klarna afterpay et al) "buy now pay later"

Like "buy now pay later" a layaway service targets low income customers. People who want to buy something but don't have the money all at once to do it.

I don't think "digital layaway" would be possible since a big part of why this service ever worked was the shopkeeper having your item up on the layaway shelf waiting for you.

Layaway also had predatory aspects, but it seems much less horrible than these modern services.

@futurebird It seems like most consumer debt products generate no profit unless/until the debtor gets behind on payments? Terrible alignment of incentives there.

@fivetonsflax

OK the hilarious thing is these new “micro credit” services eg. klarna are NOT making a profit even with the most predatory of terms. They do zero work on approving their loans (they would howl and cry at me for calling them loans — but who are we kidding here?)

Anyway they have like a 50% default rate and maybe they get the principal back but NOT all the fees they fantasized about.

So these lenders are now junk companies.

Like being a casino and losing money.

@futurebird @fivetonsflax I know someone who worked for one of these companies. Well paid and liked the job OK, but they eventually quit because they were like “the financials of this company don’t make sense, and it’s not going to stick around.”