What happens if you miss an Afterpay payment?
If you have signed-up to use the Buy Now Pay Later (BNPL) service Afterpay you might be asking yourself this question.
What happens if you miss an Afterpay payment?
A few things will happen if you miss a payment with Afterpay.
If you miss even one Afterpay payment, your Afterpay account spending balance will go to $0. Unfortunately Afterpay is generally pretty tough on late payments compared to BNPL competitors Affirm and Klarna.
Again, even if you are one day late and have a great account history with Afterpay they will block you from making additional purchases with Afterpay. At least until you make good on the original purchase loan you are delinquent on.
Afterpay typically gradually reduces your spending amount limit, until it hits $0. We have seen many Afterpay customers state this is what happens after you miss an Afterpay payment.
Afterpay will also charge a late fee if you miss a payment.
Afterpay Late Fees
How Afterpay late fees work is that if your purchase price is $40 or less, Afterpay will charge a late fee of 25%. This amount is capped.
For Afterpay purchase of $40 or above, they will apply a $10 late fee. If you do not make your Afterpay payment after 7 days from the due date of what was supposed to be your last scheduled payment, another $7 late free will apply to your purchase.
You won’t be able to use Afterpay on any other purchases until you finalize paying off the existing Afterpay loan that you missed a payment on. So no spreading out payments on those slick new sneakers.
I’ve been a good Afterpay customer!
What if you miss a payment but have been a good Afterpay customer?
If you generally have been a good Afterpay user, DimeScout recommends contacting Afterpay customer support and requesting that they increase the limit on the account and unlock it. In our experience support will make a note on the account and allow you to make new purchases using Afterpay.
However, this isn’t guaranteed and Afterpay will only re-instate an account on a case-by-case basis. Your spending limit will also be lower.
We recommend always trying to keep on-time with Afterpay payment plans. We understand life can happen, fraud can occur on bank accounts, people can get sick, etc.
Afterpay may not see your side of it though.
Afterpay Missed Payment
According to Afterpay they really really want people to pay on time. From the help section of the website;
missing payments isn’t good for anyone, so if you do miss a payment, we will immediately pause your account and you won’t be able to buy anything else with us until your payments are up to date. You may notice your spending limit decreases too; this is because our system takes into account a range of different factors, including late payments, in deciding spending limits. Missing a payment may affect your tier within the Pulse Rewards program. Note, if you are unable to make your Afterpay payments for an extended period of time, you may not be able to use our service indefinitely.
Regarding Afterpay late payments;
Late payments are bad for our business. When you make a purchase using Afterpay, we pay the retailer up front on your behalf; that means we take on the full risk of repayment. So responsible spending is as important for us as it is for you.
We will only charge a late fee if you miss a payment. But first, we will do everything we can to help you avoid this, including sending reminders leading up to the payment due date and an alert after a payment has failed. If you do miss a payment, you can’t buy anything else using Afterpay until your account is settled – which is another reason you missing payments is not how we earn money!
Moral to the story is always try to keep your Afterpay scheduled payments on-time. This goes for any Buy Now Pay Later company or service you use too.
Have you had experiences missing an payment with Afterpay? We would be interested to hear your experience in the comments below.