Scam or Na?

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Has anyone heard of Perpay? Do you have and/or use Perpay? I just stumbled across it last night when I was looking up options for an iPad. I usually use Klarna, I love Klarna by the way! But I was just looking at other options and I came across Perpay. At first glance it looked like a pretty good option. I did a little more research online and took a look at the reviews, they weren’t too awful. Even the bad reviews made sense. Either there was some sort of misunderstanding, or so people were a bit entitled. So I went ahead and created an account. Here’s how it works ( if you have never heard of Perpay): 1) You create your account (Apple has an incredible feature, where you can hide your email address, so you can register for things like this and not get your email address sold on the black market). 2) You search their marketplace 3) Place your order 4) Set up your Payroll information. Prepay doesn’t use/run your credit, because they provide you credit and you pay on your item whenever you get paid until said item is paid off. They don’t charge extra interest because they buy wholesale and up the price to make a profit. Then you have to wait for your order to actually be approved, which doesn’t take long, a few minutes. But here’s 1 of the kickers, your order doesn’t even prepare to ship until they receive your first payroll payment. In my situation, my next payday is next week, so in my head I’m like ‘ok, I can wait a week for the iPad to ship. I don’t absolutely need it, and I don’t need it anytime soon as I have other devices I can use.’ But then I started remembering some of the reviews that I read. Sometimes by the time the item shipped they were out of stock, they had sent people the wrong item, they sent bootleg items, etc. There’s no number to call, the only way to reach customer service is via chat and email. And they do not inform you before the item is supposed to ship, in fact by the reviews they don’t tell you at all. They just ship you something else, or in some cases they actually did ask the customer if they wanted something different for the same price range. Then I see an ad that if I set up my direct deposit information I won’t have to wait until they take the first payment to ship my item. Awesome, I think and I click and they want me to login to my employer’s pay system. This takes me back, I’m like na I don’t trust it, it wants my username and password. Fortunately for me my employer doesn’t use passwords because we use a authentication app, but even if we did use a password I would not have put that information in their system. Then I see that there is an option to enter the information manually. I clicked that option. It provides me with instructions on how to add an JP Morgan Chase account with a routing and account number to my payroll info to have my payments taken out by direct deposit. I pause there for a second too, like what? Have they opened up an account in my name? Without my permission? So now I have a chase account and do not have any access to it? Or is this their business account? Idk. But my point is I start to question where this account came from. Nevertheless though, I enter that information, go back to the app and click the box that says I have completed it. Then I wait. For a notification or something telling me we are good to go. I get nothing. So I say maybe it just takes a little time to verify. I wait until this morning when I wake up. I send them a message, only to find out that they do see that I manually set up the information but the only way for my item to ship before my pay date is if I would have set it up through the login information. Great, nice to know . They said to go back and enter that info. I told them that even if I could enter that information I would not for security reasons. I tell them ok, I’ll wait until next week, but how long does it usually take to ship. I was informed that it won’t ship until the pay date following the one next week, (so 3 weeks ) because that is how long it takes for everything to update in the system? WHAT?!?!? So I have to wait 3 weeks for my item to be shipped? What happens if by then the item is sold out? I asked them, their response was they did not have an answer but would transfer me to another agent to assist me with my question. WHAT?!?!?!?!?!?!? So I told them , “ Look, don't worry about it. I’m canceling the order and removing the direct deposit from my payroll. Waiting 3 weeks for an item to ship while you guys have already collected payment makes absolutely NO SENSE to me.” That conversation happened 3 hours ago and I still have not heard anything back from them. I did as I said I would though ( canceled the order and removed them from my direct deposit). Then I continued my search to find that my local Target has the exact same iPad for half the price, yea I would still have to wait a week until my next check to get it, and if by chance it was not in stock, Target could put in the order and have it shipped to me. I also saw that Amazon has it for half the price. I can place the order through affirm, have it shipped and here by Tuesday, and not have to make that first payment until next month! WINNER WINNER chicken freakin’ dinner! So I’m going to wait until the hubs gets home, he already has affirm so I can use his, plus now I can get an apple pen too and still pay less than what Perpay wanted Is it a scam? I don’t know, I think some aspects are legit. Or maybe, just enough to look legit. None of the reviews that I read said that they were completely at a loss of money, it’s just a hassle to get things right. I get they want to make a way for people with no credit or bad credit to still get the things they want or need ( because they have a whole bunch of things), but they do not listen to their customers and their policies make absolutely no sense. There were multiple complaints on the shipping policy, going back at least a couple of years ( that I read through), so why is the shipping policy still an issue? Why allow the option to enter the info manually on an advertisement that entering that info manually doesn’t apply to? Why can’t their customer service agents answer simple questions? So even if they’re not a scam, they’re not a business I want to do business with.