re: Synchrony Warning (furniture financing)

I believe this is predatory. What is your opinion?

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It was up to the salesperson to explain to the customer the financing terms whenever someone was applying for it.

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hmm. I'm remembering a little more about this now.

At RTG, the salesman had an issue because the minimum monthly payment was too low, like it had to be at least X dollars, so he set it higher as an installment. that must be why this account is still functioning as expected.


At Haverty's, I don't recall as much about the exact transaction, but I am a smart person and I did walk away fully expecting to be set up on a payment plan that would have it automatically paid off without me having to do anything.


Conclusion:

Both Haverty's and RoomsToGo intended to frick me by putting these accounts on a decreasing minimum payment, but RTG hit a snag when the minimum was too low for ACH processing.

A smart person like myself who has listened to thousands of hours of Clark Howard and Dave Ramsey, who got a mgmt degree, who works in middle management in a corporation, who has a background in finance, shouldn't walk away from a sales transaction thinking he's good to go with the payments when in fact he is getting fricked... unless the salespeople were being dishonest and predatory.

The salespeople could claim ignorance. They are just selling what they are supposed to sell, any questions here's the website, and they in fact have no clue how the payments are being manipulated and screwing people. And if an angry customer comes in three years later to bitch, the salesman is already two jobs removed and now working at the Pita Pit across the street.

This is really nothing new OP. I have a hard time believing they adjusted your account out of your contract, I'm guessing there is fine print somewhere that discusses what they did or they'd have a class action lawsuit.

The issue with 'interest free' accounts is almost 100% of the time, if you don't pay it off 100% by the end of the time period than 100% of your interest is added. So you may have to delay one payment of $200 on $2400 worth of furniture to 25 months instead of the interest free for 24 months, well your interest on the entire $2400 is now due.

Eta: oh, and that interest is usually high as a giraffe poon like 19-24%

This is SOP with most revolving credit accounts, actually... not something specific to Synchrony.

Look at the terms of your agreement. In many cases, the min payment is defined as a percentage of the current balance, with a floor (for example, 2 percent of the balance, but at least $10). So as your balance goes down, you min payment always goes down as well.

Promotional offers may require payout in full, but that's a different account feature than the min payment.

Several years ago, we bought some furniture from rooms to go. They offered 36 months 0 percent financing. I have no idea what the min payment was. When we received the first monthly bill, I set up autopay with the monthly payment being $45 a month (total charge was like $1600). Paying $45 per month would pay the entire $1600 off within 36 months. Had no issues with it at all.

And as timing would have it... just this past Monday, we ordered some furniture from Ashley for one of our kids. They offered us 24 months no interest. So we will take the total charge, divide by 24, round up, and set the autopay at that amount.

Synchrony also makes it more difficult to see your account online than it should be. Done on purpose of course.

But I completely disagree about the furniture. If you want the BEST, go buy antiques. They are over 75 years old for a reason. But if you need a Tempurpedic mattress and don’t feel like dropping $5k at once? Finance it for 24 months with 0% APR

Why not? Rooms to Go sells those mattresses

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that interest is usually high as a giraffe poon

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A phrase that I’ll surely dedicate to memory.

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That isn't how payments work. On a credit account the payment expected is going to be a percentage of the balance. If you want to pay the balance off in the promotional term it's up to you to set up payments that will do so. You seem a bit naive about this.

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Exactly this. And as said, there's a minimum of probably like $25-50. So the OP's one was below that, so he paid the minimum which was enough to pay it off in the given time frame.

As I said earlier, its standard business for them to want you to NOT pay it off in the given period. Then they get to collect all the interest. Its up to you, to set your payments to pay it off.

Gotta agree about buying used, older furniture. Most of what is sold in mass market furniture stores is not appreciably better quality than Ikea, but is marked up as though it’s worth a damn. It’s not. Run your hand down the back of any dresser sold at Ashley & similar stores: most of the time, it’s literally cardboard or another thick paper product stapled to the back. WFT are people doing buying this stuff? I can understand buying pressboard and paper at IKEA prices, but certainly NOT at furniture store prices.

Thrift & consignment stores are filled with solid wood furniture that even rough kids can’t destroy. A little sandpaper & enamel paint and it’s better than new. Or find an “unfinished” furniture store selling real wood. As the old unfinished furniture store on the west bank used to say in its ads, “friends don’t let friends buy particle board”. LOL.

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Reasons like this are why I never auto pay anything ever. Yeah it takes me a little longer to get everything paid, but I know exactly how much is going where.

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This is my thought as well. ATT prompts me every time to set up an autopay. If I'm not actually looking at the bill, I won't notice they're jacking the price on me $20 every few months. I'll use my bank's billpay service every time over debtor dinging my account at their whim.