“Click here to finance your addiction.”
HOW IS THIS LEGAL?!
this post was submitted on 04 Jul 2025
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Corruption.
For the free (no-interest) versions, it's a bullshit legal loophole in the US credit laws, or at least it was a few years ago. May have been more strongly codified since, though I bet almost nobody who could close it realizes the gap is there. The whole scheme is out of Australia, but I have no idea what their legal setup is.
The US requirements are basically:
- You can't charge fees to host the plan
- You can't charge % late fees, only fixed
- You can't have more than 4 installments, meaning no more than 5 payments if you include an optional down payment
- You must not deny customers for means-based items, or using credit data. You can give them an effectively meaningless approval value though.
You as a customer pay late fees if you miss a payment, but they make most of their money by charging the merchant a higher transaction fee. So, it's theoretically free for the customer, meaning it can fit into the loophole. Legally it isn't a credit product.
The TL;DR is "because the law is full of holes and bullshit, and if it's making people money then it's not likely to change"
Pure, unadulterated capitalism and greed finding new and horrifying ways of bleeding the people dry. Colour me unsurprised.
I don't understand how the credit card industry is okay with this. Credit cards are unsecured debt that can be discharged through bankruptcy. Not only that, usually tangible purchases can be repossessed. If someone is addicted to an online game and uses their card to purchase digital assets, how are they going to make their money back?
Credit card companies (Visa, Discover, MasterCard, AMEX) make their money through transaction fees. They make their money when you spend money using the card, regardless of any debts involved.
The banks that issue cards are a different matter. They also make some money when you use the card (some of which goes towards those credit card rewards you get, which is how they can do stuff like offer % back) but mostly they make money by letting you spend just enough money so as to be perpetually in debt. Your bank wants you to carry a balance. They want you to be paying them tens of percentage points of interest each year. The credit limit they give you isn't the amount they want you to spend in one purchase, it's calculated to be the maximum amount you can afford the running payments on, which will do nothing to touch the principal.
Sure, you can discharge the debt if you go bankrupt, but consider as well that your bank has a couple of other advantages. First, they get to see all your spending. They know how you're spending your money, where, when. They also usually get to see your other information. They know how much money comes into your balance accounts each month, they know how much your rent/mortgage costs, they know how much money is coming in from Venmo when you borrow from family to cover debts you can't pay, how much money you spend on food delivery apps, how much of an emergency fund you keep. They know how much money you're spending on things that you don't have to be, which is money you could be giving them instead, if it becomes a running balance. And at 25% interest, they only need this scheme to work for 4 years before they make as much money as they'd lose if you default on your entire balance. Plus, when you do have money in the bank, they get to use that money for other things while it's with them. If you have a $100,000 credit limit, odds are pretty good you have an account with them holding a few tens of thousands of dollars. They get to use most of that until you ask for it back.
If you know you only have a few months to live could you just max out credit card debt on digital goods to fuck over the credit card companies? There will be no value to recover.
Or drugs, if you can convert it into cash.
People 'bout to go into debt over stupid fake bullshit and not just stupid real shit.
It's all electrons in the brain anyway
Of course, the U.S. are the frontrunners of bullshit again.
The US are world leaders in enshittification technology
I'm confident in the EU eventually tackling this. They're proving to be the forefront of human rights in the world right now.
We are under constant attack from lobbying, foreign money, corruption and failing allied states looking to hurt us.
Other countries should be championing these causes also.
Absolutely there are plenty of bad actors trying to convince Europeans to get rid of their democracy because things aren’t perfect.
the bad actor, being europes neighbor to the east ,,hint hint.
But god forbid I use my credit card to pay for portrayed boobies!
The Christians have shady front groups they use to pressure credit.card companies Into bowing down to their agenda
Just one more game bro and you will be happy, get this dopamine hit using our new buy now suck my dick later solution.
What the actual fuck!!
so basically a LOAN.
Basically a loan for buying virtual shit in games. I have heard of nothing more dystopian that this.
Nothing inside a video game should cost real money.
Ban the entire business model.
Subscription based buy now pay later microtransactions. You won't see the price of the specific item but instead it just raises your monthly fee from £13.43 to £13.87 which seems pretty reasonable to give your character a pink dildo helmet.
And they’re planning to destroy your games after a set amount of years where one can no longer even look at the mtx one may mistakenly bought.
Fortnite skins fucked up my bank balance and made me homeless.
Gacha games on klarna? Oh lord
Don't play games with microtransactions then. (And vote for political parties that might do something about it.)
As long as there are people paying for microtransactions, such shitty developments will continue.