Affirm fixes glitch causing multiple charges

A few dozen Affirm customers posted complaints on Thursday about a glitch causing multiple charges to their bank accounts for payments due on buy now/pay later loans. Some cited up to five duplicate bank-account withdrawals.

Affirm responded to complaints on Twitter on Thursday evening and Friday by around midday the company announced it had resolved the problem.

"Affirm recently experienced a technical issue that caused select users to see multiple pending charges associate with their Affirm loan," the San Francisco-based company explained on Twitter.

Affirm said any pending duplicate charges will be corrected on users' bank transaction history in the next three to seven business days.

"Rest assured users have not and will not be debited multiple times," Affirm told customers on its Twitter account.

User complaints continued on Friday.

Gabby Jones/Bloomberg

Many BNPL lenders typically require borrowers to use autopay for all loan payments; Affirm's website said users may set up autopay or make manual payments.

One person replying to Affirm's Twitter posts said Affirm debited her account for $1,750. Another said his account had nine duplicate charges. Another had already contacted his bank to close the account to avoid overdraft fees.

Others vowed to disable automatic bank withdrawals on their Affirm accounts.

A spokesperson for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau said the agency would look into the problem. 

Technology breakdowns are not uncommon in financial services, but the shift to faster payments has intensified the urgency and potential harm from glitches threatening consumers who risk late payments if their bank accounts unexpectedly go negative.

Credit card lender Bread Financial's outage last summer, which prevented consumers from paying their bills on time, created a major social media backlash that resulted in a financial hit to the Dallas-based company's third-quarter 2022 earnings. 

Bread said the outage — which lasted several days — was triggered by problems during a major system upgrade that knocked out users' ability to make timely bill payments. 

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Affirm, one of the largest BNPL fintechs, has been at the forefront of a movement that saw point-of-sale installment loans grow by 970% from 2019 to 2021, according to the CFPB, which in late 2021 launched an ongoing market inquiry into the booming industry. 

After Affirm suffered a dramatic crash in its value last year — from $30 billion to $4 billion amid a capital squeeze among BNPL fintechs —the company in November 2022 said its default rate had stabilized and it expects to turn a profit beginning this year.

In a note to investors this week, equity investment firm Wedbush said Affirm recently applied for a new asset-backed security loan to shore up its capital for 2023. "This implies a new deal is in the works," Wedbush's report said.

Polo Rocha contributed to this report.