“It’s like eating a whole tub of ice cream and spreading the calories over six weeks,” Rebel says in the ad. “It’s like having the abs now and getting six weeks to do the sit-ups.”
As Ooi pointed out, what Ms Wilson doesn’t tell is that if you miss any of Afterpay’s instalment payments, you incur additional charges up to 25 per cent of the price of the goods you bought.
The company is facing a US class action brought by two law firms on behalf of Springfield, Missouri-based Brooke Miller and 100 users of the buy now, pay later service.
Financial Counselling Australia complained to the Advertising Standards Authority saying the ad was “A step too far.”
They said: “It minimises the risks of using buy now, pya later products and the fact she’s talking to young children explaining a credit product is very disturbing.”
Advertising Standards didn’t however demand the ad be withdrawn. Instead, they said using children was beyond its remit.
So Financial Counselling created a petition demanding Afterpay pull its own ad.
And to be fair, after at first defending the ad as “a humorous way to demonstrate the simplicity and transparency of our product”, the company did stop the ads.