2 Special Financing Purchases Active, how to pay balance off 1 before the interest free runs out

[bendesignsweb]

This post is mainly to help out other people as I couldn't find an answer to this anywhere until I was able to get through to someone on the help line. 

Please note: I am in the UK and have a UK Paypal account, I'm not sure how much of this will be applicable to accounts registered elsewhere.

I have two active Special Financing purchases on my Paypal Credit account. One was interest free for 4 months ending Jan 1st 2019, lets call this the first purchase and the other was a Monthly payment due to last for at 1 more year/term of 12 months lets call this the second purchase. 

It was coming up to the end of the interest free period this December so I wanted to clear the balance in full for the first purchase. I tried making a couple of payments to make sure that the payments would be allocated against the correct purchase - each time they weren't, only going to the second! So this worried me and I didn't make the full payment for the balance of the firtst Special financing purchase that would soon be interest free.

So, I tried contacting ask paypal support on Twitter and they kept telling me to call the credit helpline (It won't let me post the number... how unhelpful) which seemed to only be an automated service for making payments. I gave up a few times, vented to Paypals twitter support and they kept telling me I just needed to keep calling the number. So, with time running out I thought I'll give that number one last try. This time when presented with the options I said disputes... disputes seems to put you through to an advisor. My trouble was with making a payment but there was seemingly no option under payments that would take you to an advisor. My advice if you need to speak to someone is just say disputes - ridiculous I know. There really should be a "none of these options fit" under each of the main options you're given...

That said this is what the advisor told me:

I will need to wait until the interest free period expires on the 1st of Jan on the first Special Financing purchase on my account. Once the interest free period is over this purchase would then be in the higher interest rate bracket and therefore as long as my minimum payment has been made then all additional payments will go to the first purchase so I should be able to clear the balance of the purchase on the 2nd. 

Further to this, I asked when will I start accruing interest on the first purchase? The advisor said that I should have until my next statement balance to pay the balance of the first purchase before I start accruing interest.

So hopefully on the 2nd of January, I'll make this payment and we'll see what happens... I'll update this post afterwards.

I hope this helps other people who might be in the same situation as me where all the official help and docs are more or less useless. Until I could actually get hold of someone at Paypal I was seemingly pretty **bleep**.

[sharpiemarker]

@bendesignsweb

This is for US accounts not sure if same for UK accounts.

Minimum Payments will get credited in this order:

1. Monthly plan payments on Easy Payments purchases.
2. Deferred Interest Purchases where the promotional period will end in the next two billing cycles. If you have multiple promotions expiring in the same billing cycle, we'll apply your payment to the oldest promotion first, based on the purchase date.
3. Interest then fees.
4. Balances with a lower than standard Annual Percentage Rate (APR) (e.g. "90 Day Grace" and "Balance Prior To") in order of low to high APR, or in case of multiples with the same APR, in order of low to high balance.
5. Existing standard purchases and cash advance balances in order from lowest to highest APR.

Excess Payments will get credited in this order:

1. Deferred Interest Purchases where the promotional period will end in the next two billing cycles
2. Standard purchases in order from highest to lowest APR
3. Monthly plan payments on Easy Payments purchases in order from highest to lowest APR
4. Deferred Interest Purchases expiring more than two billing cycles from the date we receive your payment, in order of their expiration date
5. Standard purchases that have occurred on your account since your last statement date
6. Promotions with a 0% APR until the balance is paid in full in expiring order
7. Amounts in dispute

• If multiple promotional purchases posted on the same day and have the same expiration date, payments are applied to purchases in the order that they appear on the statement (valid for statements printed on or after June 20, 2013).
• Balances from recently expired Deferred Interest promotions are itemized on the statement as separate standard balances for up to 1-2 billing cycles. Payments will follow normal payment hierarchy and expired Deferred Interest promotions are treated as part of the standard balance even when itemized separately on the statement.

[kdiglas78]

Did this work for you? I'm in the same boat.

[blueoligarch]

I have a similar problem, and I am in the USA.  I have 3 Special Financing Purchases through Paypal Credit (financing by Synchrony). 

My latest one was sponsored through eBay, and for a purchases of $1,621.00 for 24 months. 

The other two are standard Paypal 6 months no interest purchases. I have been paying  the minimum amount due for on the first two for 3 months prior to the latest higher $1,600 purchase and everything was fine.  Since the $1,600 purchase Paypal is only allocating my payments to the latest purchase of $1,600.00, (balance is now $1,300)  leaving me on the hook for interest of the other 2 purchases, that have remaining balances of  around $340, the offer expires in November. 

Apparently the solution is you have to call each month, and have customer service allocate the payment how you want it.

Customer service guy I spoke with this morning said there will be an option (starting next month) to allocate payments .   I am not holding my breath. 

If they don't want their phones to ring they would fix it, they must be making money. Ridiculous. NEVER AGAIN.

Ticked Off in Jack Dorsey's home town.

NEVER AGAIN.

[Mannyiac]

I’m now in the same boat as everyone else. I have several special financing options that never go away. What really gets me is that this wasn’t a problem for me until May of this year. Before then, every payment I made would apply something towards those purchases. I’ve always payed online but didn’t notice the problem until this week. I have a few promos expiring soon and it looks like I’ll be eating that deferred interest. I called the help line and the guy old me he could fix it in a few minutes after he identified the “problem.” I waited on hold for twenty minutes before he disconnected the call. Sounds like they are trying to entice you to make the purchase and then make it as convoluted as possible to pay off the financing. I’m tempted to close my account but I’m going to give them one last chance to make it right. I definitely won’t be using PayPal credit again until they’ve streamlined this process.

[kdiglas78]

For what it’s worth, I was told to wait until the promo period had expired and I received my next statement. I was then able to phone up and pay off the special promo amount without incurring any interest. In future, if I make a special promo purchase, but have other balances, I will simply make my regular payment but save the amount for the promo payment elsewhere. When the promo has expired I will the make a lump payment from the savings. My only confusion now is why SOME of my regular payments paid an amount towards the special promo and some did not...

[Surfnski]

This is BS. I just got off of the phone with PayPal. Seems my extra payment have been going towards a 12 month easy pay purchase rather than special financing purchases. This is their way of trying to stick you with the accrued interest. Seems illegal to me, perhaps we’ll see another class action lawsuit.