Last year, I had new windows fitted, and was planning to pay for these in full when they were installed. Total amount was around £15k
The window company then offered me an option of paying 50% at the point of installation, and the other 50% one year later.
Thinking the money would be better off in my account than theirs, we took them up on this, and set a reminder in my diary to pay the balance.
Fast forward 6 months, and I've just checked my credit file ahead of applying for a remortgage. The 'buy now, pay later' credit is showing in my file, but for a total balance of nearly £50k!
I have phoned the finance company, and they've said that this is normal, as they have to show the total cost of the credit if I don't pay the balance when required and then default onto their 10 year, monthly payment plan at some ridiculous rate of interest.
This seems like absolute nonsense to me - my mortgage balance shows the amount borrowed, not the total amount I'll end up paying over 18 years
My credit card shows how much I owe as a balance, not how much I'll end up paying in total if I just do the minimum payments
I've now paid off the balance I had on finance, but have been told it will take at least 6 weeks to update my credit file, so I'm going to have to explain to to my mortgage company if they query why I've got such a large amount of borrowing on my file.
The finance company tried to claim that this way of recording the amount is totally normal and all credit companies do it, but I can't find any record of it in MSE or here... Has anyone else experienced this?