shorting BNPL is ethical :"It's just putting people into a debt...

shorting BNPL is ethical :


"It's just putting people into a debt spiral."

Meet Jackie, who needed to fix her teeth

Jackie first started using buy now, pay later to pay for things like good quality bed linen and presents for others.

Jackie advises people to avoid BNPL companies altogether, after some bad experiences of her own.(ABC News: Hamish Cole)

The disability pensioner missed a couple of payments and was hit with $18 late fees.

But it was a trip to the dental clinic - which offered BNPL as a payment option -- that landed her in serious financial trouble.

"The private dentist said to me, 'You need a couple of crowns and you need a plate or basically you're not going to have any teeth,' and they gave me a quote for $4,200," she says.

When Jackie said she could not afford the dental bill, she was told the dental clinic offered BNPL as a payment option with a company she had an account with.

Although she had initially been asked to provide a Centrelink income statement when she signed up with the BNPL company, she was able to increase her spend limit without any further checks.

A slippery slope

Jackie soon realised she could not afford the repayments and over about six months she racked up around $2,500 in late fees.

"I just clicked on the app and the money was there. You're stuck with the repayment plan," she says now.

"At one stage, they [the BNPL plan] took the money out and I didn't have money for food."