TAKING ON DEFERRED INTEREST
That higher rate isn’t the only pitfall hiding behind a zero percent interest offer. Deferred interest is an unpleasant surprise to consumers who reach the end of that zero percent interest term only to find they’ve been charged interest on purchases retroactively – and steeply. Consumers are charged a 24 percent interest rate on average for deferred-interest promotions, costing consumers $2 billion in 2016, up 10 percent from a year earlier, the Consumer Finance Protection Bureau says.
