> You weren't born with an account.

A merchant I shopped at, and paid in full by card, opened an account for me and shared line item details with Klarna, apparently because they are using them as their payments processor in addition to an installment payment option.

I noticed this when I later did in fact "open" an (or rather, claim an existing) account with them.

Very disturbing, and the bad aftertaste has never fully gone away.

Do they always open up an account when you pay by card? Because I've definitely paid online purchases with my credit card with Klarna as the processor, but I am not aware of having an account there.

You could try to find out by opening an account or alternatively with a GDPR request.

I just checked the chronology again: I performed the initial order months before opening the account, yet the line-level item details are there (and last time I checked, there was no way to delete these, for a payment years ago).

Oh, and I'm almost certain that somewhere within the fine print of paying at that store I consented to all of this, but this does not make it any less creepy from my point of view.

> You could try to find out by opening an account or alternatively with a GDPR request.

Klarna AB (a Swedish company) is obliged to follow GDPR worldwide. So, this does warrant a GDPR inquiry.

Same thing happened to me when buying a graphics card from a computer parts website. Klarna was so well integrated into the UI of the checkout process that I didn't even notice I was giving my details to them.

Only afterwards I noticed on my bank statement. I sent them a gdpr request to delete my data.

This comes across as "If you haven't read every word of all the terms of use, privacy policy, and any other legal documents of not only the initial company you interacted with, but of all their second party companies, and their services, and their services, until you've researched the entire chain of partners who could potentially have something to do with your transaction, then you are obviously complicit in everything all those companies chose to do and you have no grounds for complaint."

While you may be literally true, the reality of this economic situation is full of far more gray area than you allow for.

If this confrontational, extrermist position is intended to try and wake people up to all this, I fear your message is outweighed by your snark.

And if you don't care about that, then I've wasted as much of my breath as you have yours.

In Sweden there is a current cultural view that the only reason someone would not sign up for an account with any kind of banking service is because they are too old to navigate the registration process, in which case all they need is help going through it. Any other explanation for why someone does not have an account at X is perceived as perplexing or straight alien. Non-coffee drinkers will have an easier time culturally then those rejecting getting accounts at sites like klarna and swish.

Regarding Swish I would agree, regarding Klarna I could not disagree more.

Same here. Swish is a must. Klarna an annoyance.

I needed to buy things, because that is life, and the merchant only offered Klarna. You might want to reconsider your hostile rhetoric, it does not come across well.

I'm afraid you don't decide what comes across as hostile. Things can be discussed in many ways, yours is one of assuming to hold all the answers in a conversation with a stranger you know very little about. I would reconsider this. You don't know what I was buying, for what reason, or if there was a realistic alternative. You just say "you weren't born with it", and "it's the truth". An unconvincing way to argue whatever point you actually have.

If you find truthful and accurate statements of fact to be hostile, I don't know what to tell you, other than perhaps clarifying that I wasn't intending to be convincing or persuasive.

Those that care about the truth will be persuaded sufficiently by facts, and everyone outside of those that care about the truth I am not interested in spending any effort persuading.

Does that mean you do not care about the truth, as you seem unpersuaded by the fact your missives are found to be hostile?

opinions != facts

Unfortunately, being an asshole tends to outweigh being correct in conversation. Maybe work on those social skills, bud.

you're not coming across as terribly polite

Those things are not mutually exclusive? You can say to someone "I want to punch you", and that can both be the truth and hostile.

...and yes, you're being extremely hostile. There's a reason you got banned off of that other site...

It at least used to be very easy to accidentally sign up for Klarna, thinking you're just paying by card.

Klarna are the masters of dark UI patterns.

In principle I agree, but you can be tricked into using Klarna. However, in Europe you should be able to cancel the order without reasons.

We detached this subthread from https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27301463.

Does that mean it can’t be found on the original thread anymore?

No, it just means that it floats to the top rather than being a child of its original parent. If you're not seeing it, that's probably because the thread is paginated and you need to click "More" at the bottom of the page.

I wrote recently about the different reasons why we do this, if anyone's interested: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27132402.

Whatsapp was fantastic when it started. Right up until it was bought by facebook.

Sofortüberweisung needed your bank credentials from the start.