There`s Nothing Free About Interest Free Offers

How many times have we seen the adverts? You know the ones "buy today with no repayments until 2014". It makes it seem so easy. You can own the latest and greatest right now and pay it off over time with zero interest.

Well zero interest is an interesting term. Yes it is zero interest unless you don`t pay the full amount in the time allowed. Then you get stung by the full interest, for the whole price, backdated from the date you signed up. And by the way, the interest charge can be 40% or even higher.

Plus the company who signs you up to this deal will generally offer you another temptation of a credit card. This credit card is linked to the interest free deal and also gives you an extremely high interest rate.

Sure 3 or 4 years seems like a long time to pay something back. However it will be here quicker than you think. There are so many things that can go wrong in a process like this. Plus there is a contract for you to sign which has more words in it than the yellow pages. And believe me, none of those words are set up to protect you the buyer.

We received an email from a reader. Let`s call her Annie (not her real name). She had taken a two year interest free offer on some furniture. After making the payments regularly for the first 10 to 12 months she started to fall behind. Now she is 2 months away from her final interest free payment. But she has only paid off around 70% of the item. And there is no chance for her to raise the remaining money to pay it out. She is in really bad shape as she knows she will get backdated with the whole interest at a rate about 30%.

However Annie is not alone. In fact in the USA, 88% of all people taking out these sorts of deals never pay off the item in the allotted time.

It is such a minefield when you enter into an interest free deal. It`s time to get rid of these interest free offers from your life once and for all. If you can`t afford it, don`t buy it.