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B&H’s Payboo Credit Card Charges 29.99% Interest in Trade of Sales Tax

Chris Gampat
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05/07/2019
3 Mins read
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Last Updated on 05/07/2019 by Mark Beckenbach

The new B&H Payboo Credit Card has a higher purchase APR than Chase bank.

Last night, a number of B&H Photo affiliate partners were sent an email about a new way B&H Photo is trying to change the game for online purchasing. The new system is called Payboo, and once you get past the eye-roll-worthy name, you begin to see some great ideas. The premise behind Payboo is that B&H Photo is trying to go back to the way things were when they didn’t need to charge state sales tax for online sales. Amazon and others need to do this according to the law, and when you think about it ethically it makes sense to pay your state taxes anyway. Since they had to make that change, B&H Photo lost a competitive edge as even New York residents (where the company is based) would ship a product to a friend to Jersey and then have said friend bring the goods to NYC for them.

Editor’s Note: People seriously don’t read these days. Take a few minutes and educate yourself.

Payboo works by making you sign up for the B&H Photo Payboo credit card. Then, when you make a full purchase with the card, B&H looks at whatever state you’re in, takes the sales tax charge, and gives it back to you as credit rewards. What that means is that if I’m in New Jersey, B&H currently has to charge me sales tax based on my zip code. The armpit of America currently has a 6.625% sales tax. In real life matters, a Sony a7r III accessory kit from B&H would then cost me an additional $185.37 in sales tax. But with Payboo, I’d be getting that money back in rewards (that can only be used at B&H Photo). This is great, except that folks aren’t really talking about the really big problem here.

PayBoo’s new customers (which would most likely be everyone going forward) will charge you at a 29.99% APR. For those of you who don’t know, APR means interest charge. What that means is if you need to make a purchase on your card, pay it off pretty much immediately or else you’ll get charged the 29.99% APR (instead of paying the $6.625% NJ sales tax for example). No state in the US charges you nearly 1/3rd in sales tax. That would be absurd. But if you miss your payment, then B&H will charge you a whole lot more. If you’re disciplined with your finances, then you’re okay – until you get that interest charge you’re signing up for. The truth is that most people have credit card debt. And if you want to pay even more money, then go right ahead and use PayBoo. Comparatively speaking, a Chase Freedom card is less expensive. And at least with Chase, I can use the rewards on Amazon, at a rotating number of stores, on airfare, etc.

Editor’s Transparency Disclaimer: The Phoblographer is an active B&H Photo affiliate partner, but we haven’t actively promoted their sales offerings in years.

 

Update: B&H Photo’s Stuart Honickman reached out with a response:

How does the Payboo Card benefit really work?

When you pay for B&H purchases with the Payboo Credit Card, B&H will charge the total of merchandise plus applicable fees and taxes; but we instantly issue and apply a reward on orders made in our SuperStore or shipped to eligible states right in checkout as a form of customer payment. Then, the amount charged to the Payboo Card is net of the benefit applied. Meaning there are No Rewards for future purchasesâ€Ĥthe benefit is on the initial Order !!!

In truth, B&H does not charge or keep any of the interest charged. That’s the Bank !!!

This sounds pretty shady to me.

APR b&h b&h photo camera interest jersey payboo sales tax sony
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Chris Gampat is the Editor in Chief, Founder, and Publisher of the Phoblographer. He provides oversight to all of the daily tasks, including editorial, administrative, and advertising work. Chris's editorial work includes not only editing and scheduling articles but also writing them himself. He's the author of various product guides, educational pieces, product reviews, and interviews with photographers. He's fascinated by how photographers create, considering the fact that he's legally blind./ HIGHLIGHTS: Chris used to work in Men's lifestyle and tech. He's a veteran technology writer, editor, and reviewer with more than 15 years experience. He's also a Photographer that has had his share of bylines and viral projects like "Secret Order of the Slice." PAST BYLINES: Gear Patrol, PC Mag, Geek.com, Digital Photo Pro, Resource Magazine, Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Finance, IGN, PDN, and others. EXPERIENCE: Chris Gampat began working in tech and art journalism both in 2008. He started at PCMag, Magnum Photos, and Geek.com. He founded the Phoblographer in 2009 after working at places like PDN and Photography Bay. He left his day job as the Social Media Content Developer at B&H Photo in the early 2010s. Since then, he's evolved as a publisher using AI ethically, coming up with ethical ways to bring in affiliate income, and preaching the word of diversity in the photo industry. His background and work has spread to non-profits like American Photographic Arts where he's done work to get photographers various benefits. His skills are in SEO, app development, content planning, ethics management, photography, Wordpress, and other things. EDUCATION: Chris graduated Magna Cum Laude from Adelphi University with a degree in Communications in Journalism in 2009. Since then, he's learned and adapted to various things in the fields of social media, SEO, app development, e-commerce development, HTML, etc. FAVORITE SUBJECT TO PHOTOGRAPH: Chris enjoys creating conceptual work that makes people stare at his photos. But he doesn't get to do much of this because of the high demand of photography content. / BEST PHOTOGRAPHY TIP: Don't do it in post-production when you can do it in-camera.
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