A Michigan woman says a Best Buy “0% interest” promotion is designed to trick consumers into getting hit with unexpected retroactive interest charges.
According to plaintiff Ruth Stinson, Best Buy lures consumers with an offer of “0% interest” financing for a limited promotional period.
What consumers aren’t adequately notified about, Stinson claims, is that any unpaid balance remaining at the end of the promotional period triggers a lump-sum, retroactive interest charge based on the full purchase price for the entire promotional period.
“Even if a consumer falls just a few dollars short of full repayment, she is charged interest as if she had never made any payments to Best Buy,” the Best Buy class action lawsuit reads.
The company backs this promotion up with high-pressure sales tactics, according to this Best Buy class action lawsuit. Sales personnel are allegedly offered extra compensation for signing up customers for a Best Buy credit account. In-store advertisements heavily promote the “0% interest” financing period, without mentioning the charge for retroactive interest that could follow it, according to Stinson.
She says she was lured by this promotion in October 2015, when she financed a $947.82 purchase under a Best Buy “0% interest” payment plan. The Best Buy salesperson allegedly told her she would get 18 months of financing at “0% interest” but did not mention the prospect of a lump-sum interest payment at the end of that period.
The credit application and approval process only took about five minutes, she says. At no point during that process was she alerted to the consequences of failing to pay off the entire balance during the promotional period.
Despite paying off a significant portion of the balance on her purchase, Stinson says that at the end of the “0% interest” promotional period she was hit with an interest charge of $309.54.
As a result of promotions like these, consumers are drawn by the prospect of a no-interest purchase without understanding the consequences of failing to pay them off on time, Stinson argues. She cites a consumer survey in which only 28 percent of those surveyed correctly understood how interest is charged under “no interest if paid in full” store-brand credit card terms.
Best Buy relies on that misunderstanding to get customers to pay large interest charges when they expected to pay none, Stinson claims.
Stinson is proposing to represent a plaintiff Class that would cover all U.S. persons who, within the applicable statutory limitations period, made a purchase from Best Buy using store-issued credit and were later hit with a retroactive, lump-sum interest charge.
She is asking the court for an injunction barring Best Buy from continuing the promotion at issue. She also seeks an award of actual, punitive and exemplary damages, restitution and disgorgement of related revenues, and court costs and attorneys’ fees, all with pre- and post-judgment interest.
Stinson’s attorneys are Melissa S. Weiner and Christopher J. Moreland of Halunen Law, Jeffrey D. Kaliel of Kaliel PLLC, and Jeff Ostrow and Scott Edelsberg of Kopelowitz Ostrow Ferguson Weiselberg Gilbert.
The Best Buy 0% Interest Financing Class Action Lawsuit is Stinson v. Best Buy Co. Inc., Case No. 0:18-cv-00295-JNE-FLN, in the U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota.
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220 thoughts onBest Buy Class Action Says 0% Interest Promotions are a Trap
So I buy and get a car stereo from bestbuy with a 18 month promotion. One month later bestbuy takes the full payment of the total purchase from my checking account because I’m on autopay full statement balance. Not realizing until a few days later I call them and say it was supposed to be on the 18 month. So I they say they’ll return it but it will take a few weeks to process. So I pay the $100 monthly payment and it looks like I have a credit of $100 on my account until a month later they return my full payment. Okay now they say I’m on the 18 month promotion. I’m good right? No, a few months later I go online (because remember, no more paper statements) right? Only to find out I’m being charged interest now. So I call again and they say no you are on the 18 month promotion. We usually think these people know what they’re doing and it’s going to be corrected AGAIN after being on the phone again for hours. Nope…do not assume anything EVER! So I call in again and say why am I being charged finance charges AGAIN? Half an hour later the girl comes back on the line and says they tried many times to put you back on it but they couldn’t for some reason. Another half an hour later she comes back on and says well when you paid the first full balance which was the entire amount that satisfied the promo balance and when we returned your check a month later it then went into some regular balance. BEWARE OF THIS BEST BUY SCAM! Now they say they cannot do anything and it pisses me off. I paid the full amount in the beginning because I didn’t change my autopay to a lower monthly payment. Even though they kept saying they could correct it, they were just bullying me into their scam and I thought they took care of it as the lady said it was done. I need a lawyer to get my conversations with them so they can be stopped and sued for scamming people once and for all.
I had similar experience. I asked for verification, but never any answer. I never got a call back only messages with their bot. But I gave plenty explanation of the problem I discovered.
Same issue. Best buy told me it was only for the two original items I’m purchasing with the promotional. Turns out different. I only owed 917$ every payment on time. Friday morning I found out they raised it to $1,944 due to interest. I called up and complained.
I just was hit with the same thing. When I got the promotional at Best buy they told me it was only for the two items that I purchased. Not anything after. I paid off both those items then later on bought other stuff. My remaining balance was 917$ . I was just hit with interest and it brought my bill to $1,944. Send outrageous and criminal
I was alerted about a promotional balance expiring soon and noticed i had 33 days to pay $1,400 or i was going to be hit with $1,200 in interest. I paid the promotional balance down to where i owed $1,113.74 left. So i made sure that was the only promotional balance selected in the screen where you can pick which balances get paid by anything over the minimum payment. I triple checked because i wanted to make sure the entire payment went to that balance. I made a payment of $1,114 and checked a few days later and they paid off 3 completely irrelevant balances and only applied about $800 to the balance i was trying to pay off. They are doing this on purpose to try to get customers to pay interest. Even when i specifically selected only that balance. Such a scam and they need to be held accountable. Now i have to come up with another $307 in 22 days or get hit with $1,200 in interest. what a joke!