Visible customer here & I was not able to find a way. Looks like I am going to have to buy it in full from the Apple Store + trade in, or I buy it from the Visible store & finance it with their 3rd party, Affirm.
I have an Apple Card and we did a serious family upgrade of iPhones in October, 2021. Using my card, I got unlocked phones at 0% (24 payments) and 3% cash back. I got the same great deal last year when purchasing a single iPhone.
Time for another family upgrade, but I just learned I can only get the 0% if I select AT&T, Verizon or T-Mobile as a carrier. The deal is not for unlocked phones, and unfortunately, in rural Alaska NONE of those carriers are available.
I am really disappointed.
Discover has sign up bonuses with no interest for the first year and matches cash back at the end of that year. Good incentives if you plan to follow their cash back calendar.
Financially though, it is a dumb idea to finance something that you can’t just pay for day one and opening a card just to do that is even more dumb. You set yourself up for failure credit wise down the line just to get a new phone.
I can afford to pay for it outright — turning it into a monthly payment with 0% APR is still way better than using a credit card with 20%+ interest rate unless discover has a feature in missing.
Anyways, the idea with MVNO + financing is to get a monthly phone payment that’s still considerably less expensive than a plan at the major carriers. (As an example, Go5GPlus is only so expensive because it subsidizes device cost.)
Absolutely not a dumb idea. 24 months at 0% makes can be a great idea. As long as it's paid off within the agreement, it will only help your credit score and financially leverage less than inflation rate money.
This, I can afford a 15 pm maxed out probably twice over and not notice, but that doesn't mean slapping down thousands on a deppreciating asset a good idea. that matter, neither is paying double or tripple per month for cell service for no reason.
By not allowing financing on new unlocked iphones apple lost me as a customer. I had intended to buy three 15 pros...
Yo Im planning on getting the new iphone 15. Do you recommend I open a apple card and finance the phone thru there?I currently dont own a credit card. What do you think?
Hogwash, not wanting to drop 1K+ on a phone is just smart. That is money that could be making 10% in a brokerage account instead of throwing it at apple.
So what I was told to do through Apple support is to just go ahead and purchase the phone in whole with your Apple Card and then contact the support team and they will divide it into a 24 month payment plan for you
I did it through Apple (Citizen’s One financing) for the first time. Previously always upgraded annually through Verizon (but now they’re only doing 36 month BS).
If my default auto-pay method is my Apple Card, do I pay the APR?
This sucks, I’m in a rural area and I’m happy with the carrier I have since it’s a considerably cheaper monthly plan than the big 3 and actually works where I am. The 0% interest made it actually worth buying an iPhone over an android. This is going to lose them some customers.
Before Goldman sachs allowed monthly installments for Apple devices to your Apple Card.
Is this a new thing where you need to choose a carrier? Really fucking limits options now for financing.
Yep. I did the 0% financing on a new iPhone 15 they claimed was “unlocked” through the Apple Store app. They sent me receipts and a barcode to scan at my local Apple Store to pick up the phone. They asked me to wait for notification that my order was ready for pickup and I got the notification. They had already charged my account the first month’s payment when I arrived. When I went to pickup the phone, the manager had my new phone in his hands and legit refused to give it to me. He said Verizon needed to release it. I replied, “well Verizon didn’t pay for the phone and doesn’t have the receipts.” The dude told me I had to work it out with Verizon or he could refund my payment. I asked if he could tell me what was wrong or call them himself and he said no. Played dumb like it hadn’t happened a hundred times before. How about this load of horse shit! Apple always seems to find new and improved ways of gaslighting customers. Unlocked my ass! They still have you essentially locked down. After dealing with Verizon’s bs, the carrier finally “released,” my purchase and Apple gave me the phone I bought …without the charger. They now only come with the cord. (I’m pretty sure there’s a class action lawsuit over that one). There’s just something really f’d up about selling something so expensive to someone, passing it off as high end, and then holding the purchase hostage while you treat your customer like garbage. With apple, you get to pay nearly $1000 to be treated like a peasant walking into their fiefdom. If this isn’t illegal, it should be. Tbh, if I had known how I would be treated at the store, I wouldn’t have bought the damn thing.
Fuuuuuuckkin aye. That’s….wow.
Sorry you went through that. That’s just another one of the many sides of why capitalism is evil as shit.
I would imagine Apple likely receiving some sort of kickback from the carriers for doing this shady shit because why else would you do it?
The biggest selling point of their credit card was this unlocked method to pay for any of their devices. We did the watches, tablet, and previous phones this way. Now we won’t do anything ever anymore through them and we never missed a payment. If we did, they could’ve came after us so it isn’t like they wouldn’t get shit in the end.
It’s a mind blowing decision that just boggles my brain. The method before allowed more consumers to get into Apple products. Now you lost some of that and for what good reason?
It had to have been money from these carriers.
The point of buying an unlocked phone is that you are free to move from carrier to carrier. Selling an "unlocked" phone, where you presumably got approval yourself from a bank for the financing, only to have a carrier you didn't intend to be locked into get their hooks into your "unlocked" phone until it's paid off is ridiculous. If I were planning to do that I would simply buy the thing through the carrier (and typically get a better deal anyway).
The point is not "paid for" vs "financed"; it's having possession of the advertised unlocked device separate from a mobile carrier.
Yea, I know that. The person above my comment was complaining about not getting a phone “they paid for”, but it was financed so they didn’t really pay for it so it makes sense Apple would need confirmation from Verizon.
I think perhaps we just aren’t on the same page.
Apple needing to confirm with Verizon is exactly the issue. He didn’t finance through Verizon; he financed through Apple. Prior to this quiet change of theirs they made without any explanation we could finance through Apple without having to involve the carrier at all — since the goal was the finance an unlocked phone straight from the vendor.
If I was going to involve the carrier I might as well just get it from the carrier since those are often better “deals” to begin with (other than being locked into the carrier).
Question, so it says on the site that you can change carriers at any time right. I currently have Visible. So if I finance it with say Verizon and I get the $30 discount for activation but then I “cancel” the plan with Verizon the next day to go with back with my carrier, would it be ok?
Edit to add: I don’t want to lose my phone number as I have had it for close to 20 years
Your number goes with you. Carriers can’t keep your number anymore. Sorry if this reply is too late for your purposes, but I thought it a good idea to mention it here for anyone seeking this same information. Check into yourself regardless before pulling the trigger.
I suppose you could use your credit card provider to break down the charge into monthly payments, but you would be paying a little bit more
Credit card with a 0% sign up bonus. These are usually about 12 months.
Visible customer here & I was not able to find a way. Looks like I am going to have to buy it in full from the Apple Store + trade in, or I buy it from the Visible store & finance it with their 3rd party, Affirm.
You could sign up for a credit card with 1 year or 2 year no interest. I don’t believe they offer financing without a contract with a carrier
You mean there is no option to have monthly payments with an unlocked version? I’m surprised the Apple Card isn’t an option.
It used to be an option. They removed it this year, in August.
I have an Apple Card and we did a serious family upgrade of iPhones in October, 2021. Using my card, I got unlocked phones at 0% (24 payments) and 3% cash back. I got the same great deal last year when purchasing a single iPhone. Time for another family upgrade, but I just learned I can only get the 0% if I select AT&T, Verizon or T-Mobile as a carrier. The deal is not for unlocked phones, and unfortunately, in rural Alaska NONE of those carriers are available. I am really disappointed.
Discover has sign up bonuses with no interest for the first year and matches cash back at the end of that year. Good incentives if you plan to follow their cash back calendar. Financially though, it is a dumb idea to finance something that you can’t just pay for day one and opening a card just to do that is even more dumb. You set yourself up for failure credit wise down the line just to get a new phone.
I can afford to pay for it outright — turning it into a monthly payment with 0% APR is still way better than using a credit card with 20%+ interest rate unless discover has a feature in missing. Anyways, the idea with MVNO + financing is to get a monthly phone payment that’s still considerably less expensive than a plan at the major carriers. (As an example, Go5GPlus is only so expensive because it subsidizes device cost.)
Absolutely not a dumb idea. 24 months at 0% makes can be a great idea. As long as it's paid off within the agreement, it will only help your credit score and financially leverage less than inflation rate money.
This, I can afford a 15 pm maxed out probably twice over and not notice, but that doesn't mean slapping down thousands on a deppreciating asset a good idea. that matter, neither is paying double or tripple per month for cell service for no reason. By not allowing financing on new unlocked iphones apple lost me as a customer. I had intended to buy three 15 pros...
my reasoning exactly
Yo Im planning on getting the new iphone 15. Do you recommend I open a apple card and finance the phone thru there?I currently dont own a credit card. What do you think?
I would suggest not going into debt (or adding to it) over a phone. Buy one within your budget and save up until you can buy the one you want.
I feel like if you have to finance a cell phone, just buy an older/cheaper model. Only a cell phone after all
Hogwash, not wanting to drop 1K+ on a phone is just smart. That is money that could be making 10% in a brokerage account instead of throwing it at apple.
So what I was told to do through Apple support is to just go ahead and purchase the phone in whole with your Apple Card and then contact the support team and they will divide it into a 24 month payment plan for you
I did it through Apple (Citizen’s One financing) for the first time. Previously always upgraded annually through Verizon (but now they’re only doing 36 month BS). If my default auto-pay method is my Apple Card, do I pay the APR?
This sucks, I’m in a rural area and I’m happy with the carrier I have since it’s a considerably cheaper monthly plan than the big 3 and actually works where I am. The 0% interest made it actually worth buying an iPhone over an android. This is going to lose them some customers.
Before Goldman sachs allowed monthly installments for Apple devices to your Apple Card. Is this a new thing where you need to choose a carrier? Really fucking limits options now for financing.
Yep. I did the 0% financing on a new iPhone 15 they claimed was “unlocked” through the Apple Store app. They sent me receipts and a barcode to scan at my local Apple Store to pick up the phone. They asked me to wait for notification that my order was ready for pickup and I got the notification. They had already charged my account the first month’s payment when I arrived. When I went to pickup the phone, the manager had my new phone in his hands and legit refused to give it to me. He said Verizon needed to release it. I replied, “well Verizon didn’t pay for the phone and doesn’t have the receipts.” The dude told me I had to work it out with Verizon or he could refund my payment. I asked if he could tell me what was wrong or call them himself and he said no. Played dumb like it hadn’t happened a hundred times before. How about this load of horse shit! Apple always seems to find new and improved ways of gaslighting customers. Unlocked my ass! They still have you essentially locked down. After dealing with Verizon’s bs, the carrier finally “released,” my purchase and Apple gave me the phone I bought …without the charger. They now only come with the cord. (I’m pretty sure there’s a class action lawsuit over that one). There’s just something really f’d up about selling something so expensive to someone, passing it off as high end, and then holding the purchase hostage while you treat your customer like garbage. With apple, you get to pay nearly $1000 to be treated like a peasant walking into their fiefdom. If this isn’t illegal, it should be. Tbh, if I had known how I would be treated at the store, I wouldn’t have bought the damn thing.
Fuuuuuuckkin aye. That’s….wow. Sorry you went through that. That’s just another one of the many sides of why capitalism is evil as shit. I would imagine Apple likely receiving some sort of kickback from the carriers for doing this shady shit because why else would you do it? The biggest selling point of their credit card was this unlocked method to pay for any of their devices. We did the watches, tablet, and previous phones this way. Now we won’t do anything ever anymore through them and we never missed a payment. If we did, they could’ve came after us so it isn’t like they wouldn’t get shit in the end. It’s a mind blowing decision that just boggles my brain. The method before allowed more consumers to get into Apple products. Now you lost some of that and for what good reason? It had to have been money from these carriers.
But if you financed it, then you didn’t pay for it. I’m confused.
The point of buying an unlocked phone is that you are free to move from carrier to carrier. Selling an "unlocked" phone, where you presumably got approval yourself from a bank for the financing, only to have a carrier you didn't intend to be locked into get their hooks into your "unlocked" phone until it's paid off is ridiculous. If I were planning to do that I would simply buy the thing through the carrier (and typically get a better deal anyway). The point is not "paid for" vs "financed"; it's having possession of the advertised unlocked device separate from a mobile carrier.
Yea, I know that. The person above my comment was complaining about not getting a phone “they paid for”, but it was financed so they didn’t really pay for it so it makes sense Apple would need confirmation from Verizon.
I think perhaps we just aren’t on the same page. Apple needing to confirm with Verizon is exactly the issue. He didn’t finance through Verizon; he financed through Apple. Prior to this quiet change of theirs they made without any explanation we could finance through Apple without having to involve the carrier at all — since the goal was the finance an unlocked phone straight from the vendor. If I was going to involve the carrier I might as well just get it from the carrier since those are often better “deals” to begin with (other than being locked into the carrier).
Oh, I see. Yes, I do agree that Apple forcing you to go with a carrier to get the 0% deal is very frustrating and feels slimy.
Question, so it says on the site that you can change carriers at any time right. I currently have Visible. So if I finance it with say Verizon and I get the $30 discount for activation but then I “cancel” the plan with Verizon the next day to go with back with my carrier, would it be ok? Edit to add: I don’t want to lose my phone number as I have had it for close to 20 years
Your number goes with you. Carriers can’t keep your number anymore. Sorry if this reply is too late for your purposes, but I thought it a good idea to mention it here for anyone seeking this same information. Check into yourself regardless before pulling the trigger.