One woman Checkpoint spoke to described it as a \u201csucker punch or sucker pull\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s like spending your money before you have the money. I think it just suckers people in. They get all these things, and then they can\u2019t pay for it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Another local said he liked Afterpay because it lets him \u201cspread out my tick\u201d. The man said he last used it to pay for birthday presents.<\/p>\n
Alex \u201cMoko\u201d Tango had been dubbed the \u201cAfterpay queen\u201d of Kaikohe, because she used it to pay for nearly everything, including groceries, hair appointments and vet visits.<\/p>\n
The week Checkpoint spoke to her, she had used it to buy groceries and household items from The Warehouse. She had also paid for a tank of gas, and taken her two dogs to the vet.<\/p>\n
In Kaikohe, a range of stores let people pay with Afterpay, including the Z petrol station, the chemist, The Warehouse, a mechanic\u2019s garage and a flooring installer and bed shop.<\/p>\n
Tango said without Afterpay, she would not be able to pay for a lot of the things she needs.<\/p>\n
She was not currently working because of health reasons and relied on the supported living payment.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s the reality of knowing I\u2019d have to save that money over eight weeks,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cSo even though it\u2019s fortnightly for Afterpay, I know what my weekly budget would be to cover, instead of having to wait eight weeks after the fact to save in my budget to pay [for things].\u201d<\/p>\n
That week, the vet bill for Tango\u2019s two dogs came in at just under $300 and her petrol cost $148. The Warehouse grocery shop came to about $170, which Tango says should last for two weeks.<\/p>\n
Tango also stressed Afterpay only works for those who are diligent budgeters, which she had learnt to do as someone who lives on a benefit.<\/p>\n
\u201cI can honestly say as a beneficiary, it has conditioned me to be able to live in this type of budget-threshold.\u201d<\/p>\n
Alex \u201cMoko\u201d Tango says without Afterpay, she would not be able to pay for a lot of the things she needs. Photo \/ RNZ – Nick Monro<\/p>\n
And while Tango had never been penalised for missed or late repayments as an Afterpay user, the Salvation Army warned not everyone finds the buy-now-pay-later service easy to manage.<\/p>\n
Senior policy analyst Ana Ika said it was easy for people to rack up debt without realising it.<\/p>\n
\u201cLast week, I looked over a lot of our client\u2019s case notes …. [in] someone\u2019s case they [were] spending over $367 a week in [paying] back buy-now-pay-later. The majority of that is paid out of their benefit so it creates a lot of financial hardship for that individual and their family.\u201d<\/p>\n
Nationally, more than 500,000 people in New Zealand have used Afterpay in the past nine years, according to the company.<\/p>\n
The popularity of services like Afterpay among people Salvation Army works with showed benefit and income levels were not enough, Ika said.<\/p>\n
Ultimately, income and benefit levels should be adequate so people could afford essentials like petrol and groceries, and not turn to buy-now-pay-later services like Afterpay, she said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"One woman Checkpoint spoke to described it as a \u201csucker punch or sucker pull\u201d. \u201cIt\u2019s like spending your…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":369430,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[67066,534,3167,24747,537,85989,120954,42,43,1067,530,120953,61,40,38,41,39,3382],"class_list":{"0":"post-369429","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-afterpay","9":"tag-amid","10":"tag-buy","11":"tag-costofliving","12":"tag-crisis","13":"tag-essentials","14":"tag-fuatai","15":"tag-headlines","16":"tag-news","17":"tag-northland","18":"tag-residents","19":"tag-teuila","20":"tag-to","21":"tag-top-news","22":"tag-top-stories","23":"tag-topnews","24":"tag-topstories","25":"tag-using"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/369429","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=369429"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/369429\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/369430"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=369429"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=369429"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=369429"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}