It’s complicated being a consumer these days. There’s so much information, but most of it is to get you to buy stuff rather than make financial choices that are good for you.
In recognition of National Consumer Protection Week 2026, March 1-7, the U.S. PIRG Education Fund is showcasing resources to help Americans address a wide range of common issues. The U.S. PIRG is a public interest research group.
“Taking care of all of your personal business can seem like a part-time job sometimes,” Teresa Murray, consumer watchdog director for the U.S. PIRG Education Fund, said in a statement. “We aim to help consumers help themselves with easy-to-understand guides focused on some of the problems that plague us most.”
Buy now pay later
The popularity of the modern way to buy something today and pay for it tomorrow – known as “buy now, pay later,” or BNPL, – has exploded in the last six years.
With companies such as Affirm, Afterpay, and Klarna, consumers can pay for purchases in installments, generally over a period of six weeks, with no fees or interest if they pay on time. Nearly one in three U.S. adults have used one of these loans, according to a Bankrate survey last year.
“These BNPL loans can be an option for something you really need now, such as a refrigerator because yours broke, or a new tire because you got a flat,” Teresa Murray, consumer watchdog director for U.S. PIRG Education Fund, said in a statement. “But it’s important to know what you’re getting into and many consumers clearly don’t.”
Problems with BNPL
Murry said her organization is seeing people overcommit by taking out too many loans at a time, adding people don’t realize the transactions have almost no protections – nothing like the protections available with credit cards, debit cards, or actual loans.
While this method is supposed to make life easier for consumers, it hasn’t gone well for about half of BNPL customers. The top problems include overspending, missing a payment, or regretting a purchase, the Bankrate survey said. Another survey, by LendingTree, found that 41 percent of BNPL users say they made a late payment in the previous year.
Problems such as late payment fees or accruing interest can occur if consumers overspend or don’t keep track of the payments that will be charged automatically, generally every two weeks, she said.
Julian Alcazar, who researched the issue for the Federal Reserve, said it’s easy for someone to misuse BNPL.
“I would normally pay $20 for one shirt at J.Crew, but with BNPL, I can spend $20 over several weeks for three shirts – BNPL leads to larger purchases and lower cart abandonment,” Alcazar said.
The number of BNPL loans skyrocketed as people shopped online from home during the covid-19 pandemic, growing from about 17 million loans in 2019 to 180 million loans in 2021, according to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, or CFPB. That enthusiasm hasn’t slowed, as holiday spending using BNPL hit a new high in 2025.
Lack of protections
Despite how frequently problems come up, the CFPB, under the Trump administration, in 2025 announced it wouldn’t enforce new BNPL rules to protect consumers, and then it withdrew the rules completely. The rules would have required billing statements and a consumer’s right to dispute charges and get a refund for returned merchandise.
Since then, a bill was introduced in Congress in December and New York proposed new rules in February that would provide BNPL customers with many of the same protections that consumers who make purchases with credit cards have.
Resources to help
Because of the lack of guardrails and the abundance of problems, the U.S. PIRG Education Fund is highlighting buy now, pay later during National Consumer Protection Week 2026. Consumers can get more information from the group’s guide, Buy Now, Pay Later: What to Know Before You Sign Up, and its tip sheet, Buy Now, Pay Later plans: Tips to Avoid the Pitfalls.
The next article, which also celebrates National Consumer Protection Week, will be “How to Avoid Phone Scams.”
