Normalize to get answer
Just this week I got 3 offers for 70¢ WM credits from a reseller. If you look at Craigslist and local newspapers in the northwest you can easily find them for 60¢ direct from the owner.
If you have 20,000 WM credits the MF is $878 or a rough estimate of 4¢ each.
Credits can be rented from other owners for about 6¢ now.
I “normalize” WM accounts 2 ways:
Cash purchase:
Take the price - 6¢ each credit available to immediately use – this gives you the “normalized” sales price per credit.
e.g.
10,000 credit account selling for $8,000 and has 10,000 credits in the “bank”:
$8,000 - 6¢ * 10,000 credits (you could rent these out for cash) = $7,400 or 7.4¢ a credit.
Taking over finance payments (lots of this on eBay):
This is a little harder. Basically, you must take the monthly payment * number of months left to pay = purchase price. Then subtract the credits in the bank * 6¢ which you could get as cash; this gives you your “normalized” cost per credit.
Those 10,000 credits cost the eBay owner $1.55 3 years ago and he has 7 years, or 84 payments of $216.51 per month left. You can assume the loan at the same rate and duration or make a lump sum payment of $11,557 (this is nuts). If 10,000 credits remain in the bank then the net cost is $17,586 or $1.76 a credit.
Obviously this is a horrible deal, but some folks are dying to buy WM and the payment plan makes that possible. In case you’re wondering, at 13.99% interest of 90% of the loan is equal to 70¢ per credit when 33 months remain on the contract ($7,000/$216.51).
So just multiply the number of payments left by the payment per month and get the total you will pay for those credits.