[rigelbm]

To be fair, if implemented correctly (read "as an opt-in"), that would have been a pretty useful feature. The browser already allows you to setup credit/debit card as payment options. Having an option to setup other payment providers sounds like a natural extension of that. The main issue is how they did it: as a forced feature screaming at your face, instead of something you have to setup yourself. On the flip side, I can see how difficult it would be discoverability of the feature if they just stashed it in a menu somewhere. Neither extreme is perfect. I would have erred on the side of not annoying most users.

[quietbritishjim]

The fact that the payments are interest free makes it clear that they make their money by people failing to make their payments on time and paying a presumably high (and certainly unstated in that box) penalty rate. In other words, the goal is to direct vulnerable people at a predatory loan shark. That's hardly a useful feature, no matter how it's implemented.

[TheCoelacanth]

"Interest-free" is at best misleading and arguably an outright lie. There is a $4 fee to take out the loan.

While a flat fee is not interest in the strictest terms, if they were using APR, which is the standard way of talking about interest rates for consumer loans, it would be a non-zero rate.

[rurp]

To make it even worse it's only interest free if the payments are made on time. I'm sure the business model expects a certain amount of people to miss a payment and end up owing credit card level interest amounts, on top of the initial fee.

This is extremely scummy.