It's all in how it's processed. I've seen people report using business cards for this transaction.
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Declined for Apple upgrade program?
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Just talked to a Citizens manager again some updates:
If your card address and license are different you may have been automatically denied. They are working on a fix to add this.
If your AMEX says "OPEN" on the back it would have gone through as a business card. Also still working on a fix.
They still have yet to generate the letters saying why you were denied. Check back in a day or so to find out why.
I wonder how Apple will handle people who lost their reservation because of technical issues with Citizens.
If your card address and license are different you may have been automatically denied. They are working on a fix to add this.
If your AMEX says "OPEN" on the back it would have gone through as a business card. Also still working on a fix.
They still have yet to generate the letters saying why you were denied. Check back in a day or so to find out why.
I wonder how Apple will handle people who lost their reservation because of technical issues with Citizens.
I'm curious to see what these letters say regarding why some were declined. I regularly set up a 90 day fraud alert for both my wife and I, most recently in July, and I was approved so there doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason for some of these declines. My feeling is there was a communication error with Citizens that prompted the majority of the declines.
Update (for me anyway): I called Citizens One this morning after reserving another iPhone. They were supposed to be able to tell after 24 hours the reasons why I got declined.
Unfortunately due to the volume of applications they received yesterday, they were backed up and did not have that information, and that department was closed because they don't have weekend hours.
She went through a lot of the glitches they did have yesterday to ensure that none of them apply to my account. The biggest being that Chase, Amex, and any "Business" card were for some reason declined yesterday. She also mentioned to ensure that my billing address on my credit card was the same as the one on the application that I did. (Mine was different, however she said as long as it's listed as a previous address on your credit report it should be fine.) But that this was a reason for a large amount of declines yesterday.
She did mention that there is a 3 attempt max before your SSN will be locked out of their system for 30 days. Fortunately for me, it only counts as a "new attempt" each time you use a new credit card for the application (according to her). So if you only tried one or two cards (even several times) she said you should be okay. She also mentioned to ensure with Equifax that there is no fraud protection, lifelock type stop on my account, because this could be the reason for the decline. I've never put anything on mine, but apparently a large number of people yesterday didn't even realize they had one.
She advised me to wait until Monday morning (more waiting, yay) when they would "for sure" be able to pull my account as to why. She didn't want me to risk going in again today to just blindly give it another go and then that be the reason I'm locked out for 30 days. She mentioned that if an account is locked out of their system, even due to glitch/error, there is no way to reverse the 30 day lock. Hopefully that doesn't hurt a lot of people on this forum.
So for now? I guess I wait until Monday.
We did go over every aspect that they look at when determining to the criteria for approval or not, and I passed every single area: Minimum Purchase was at least $400 max $4,000, number of missed/late payments reported (0), DTI (15%), not using a chase/amex/or business card, and ensuring it's a CREDIT card (preferably not linked to any bank account), and they don't have a minimum credit score requirement. As I said before, the only "negative"-ish thing on my credit history is I have a few hard pulls on my credit from buying a car back in February. She said however that those are low impact and not something they look at to approve/deny a loan.
Who knows. I'm very close to being over it at this point.
Unfortunately due to the volume of applications they received yesterday, they were backed up and did not have that information, and that department was closed because they don't have weekend hours.
She went through a lot of the glitches they did have yesterday to ensure that none of them apply to my account. The biggest being that Chase, Amex, and any "Business" card were for some reason declined yesterday. She also mentioned to ensure that my billing address on my credit card was the same as the one on the application that I did. (Mine was different, however she said as long as it's listed as a previous address on your credit report it should be fine.) But that this was a reason for a large amount of declines yesterday.
She did mention that there is a 3 attempt max before your SSN will be locked out of their system for 30 days. Fortunately for me, it only counts as a "new attempt" each time you use a new credit card for the application (according to her). So if you only tried one or two cards (even several times) she said you should be okay. She also mentioned to ensure with Equifax that there is no fraud protection, lifelock type stop on my account, because this could be the reason for the decline. I've never put anything on mine, but apparently a large number of people yesterday didn't even realize they had one.
She advised me to wait until Monday morning (more waiting, yay) when they would "for sure" be able to pull my account as to why. She didn't want me to risk going in again today to just blindly give it another go and then that be the reason I'm locked out for 30 days. She mentioned that if an account is locked out of their system, even due to glitch/error, there is no way to reverse the 30 day lock. Hopefully that doesn't hurt a lot of people on this forum.
So for now? I guess I wait until Monday.
We did go over every aspect that they look at when determining to the criteria for approval or not, and I passed every single area: Minimum Purchase was at least $400 max $4,000, number of missed/late payments reported (0), DTI (15%), not using a chase/amex/or business card, and ensuring it's a CREDIT card (preferably not linked to any bank account), and they don't have a minimum credit score requirement. As I said before, the only "negative"-ish thing on my credit history is I have a few hard pulls on my credit from buying a car back in February. She said however that those are low impact and not something they look at to approve/deny a loan.
Who knows. I'm very close to being over it at this point.
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Did they say they want to see ZERO missed/late payments on all accounts? If so, I wonder if that could be what is getting so many people denied. With most credit profiles showing seven years of history, tons of people have at least one late payment somewhere on their report.
I agree! I believe we will have a lot better understanding why there appear to be so many denials once people starting getting their letters. Hopefully some will report back here.
No. She didn't give a number as to what they were looking for here. Just that it is a determining factor for them.
That's interesting because I do have a 90 day fraud alert that was recently set up in July and I was approved so there's that
I think it's safe to say that we're not going to get any solid answers this weekend. Probably best to stop speculating.
Now I'm worried because my drivers license address is different from billing addresses because of my job. I sure hope this won't get me denied. Damn gliches 
I wonder if when they get things worked out if they will allow some to try again?
I wonder if when they get things worked out if they will allow some to try again?
Sorry. Didn't mean to imply that all chase and Amex cards were declined. Just that they most were declined with those cards.
This was so helpful thank you! I feel much more confident about my reservation today!
I apologize if this has been mentioned repeatedly as I haven't read through the whole thread, but according to a thread I saw on reddit.com , Citizens One was having a bunch of issues with their systems and people were being denied arbitrarily because of communication glitches and not because of their credit history. This would explain why those with stellar credit were getting denied. T-Mobile's system were whack yesterday as well and I couldn't do the upgrade program because of that and bought at full price after waiting an hour. I'm going back today to see if I can do it. Hopefully some of the kinks will be ironed out and it will go through.
This is the right answer. No one knows why but we can safely assume backend systems were having problems yesterday. There's no reason for anyone to be salty about it.
False. I will be salty if I have to wait 30 days and put another ding on my credit. Lol
Yes if you happen to be denied, you have the option to buy the iPhone outright. Nothing, just that it comes with the sim card it was meant for but if you purchase it outright, it will be unlocked out of the box.