This makes no sense. There's an awesome app, called Credit Karma, which gives you your credit score from two providers. It also informs you as to why your score went up or down, which credit card offers are optimal for you, etc. Few people know that how much you pay for car insurance (for example) is impacted by your credit score. It also helps to know who's doing what - T-Mobile did a hard pull on my account when I first set it up without telling me. I contacted them about this pretty quickly. And a lot of people think 'I rarely use my credit card, and I only have two credit cards and pay for the rest in cash so I must have great credit.' This is completely false. There's so many determining factors, many of which don't make any sense, but having access to this info is invaluable. Please stop advising pull to not check their credit score.
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Declined for Apple upgrade program?
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This makes no sense. There's an awesome app, called Credit Karma, which gives you your credit score from two providers. It also informs you as to why your score went up or down, which credit card offers are optimal for you, etc. Few people know that how much you pay for car insurance (for example) is impacted by your credit score. It also helps to know who's doing what - T-Mobile did a hard pull on my account when I first set it up without telling me. I contacted them about this pretty quickly. And a lot of people think 'I rarely use my credit card, and I only have two credit cards and pay for the rest in cash so I must have great credit.' This is completely false. There's so many determining factors, many of which don't make any sense, but having access to this info is invaluable. Please stop advising pull to not check their credit score.
I said you don't need to (with a few exceptions), and that you shouldn't do a full pull of your credit report on a regular basis. I didn't say don't use an app if you want to, just that you don't need to. LOL, if you want to make yourself neurotic about it, go right ahead. It's a lot like the folks who monitor their 401k numbers on a daily/weekly basis - you don't need to do that, and it's really just crazy-making, but you can if you want.
But yes, more people should be educated about how it all works. Having an app or otherwise tracking your score doesn't stop you from making bad decisions about your credit and financial situation. Knowing how credit works does.
except it's not 0% like every other 0% auto financing offer
0% just means the true selling price is lower. why would any bank lend you money at 0%?
That's what Credit Karma and the annual credit reports are for. These don't throw flags.
Except you can't make a deal for a lower price when you pay cash for your iphone. I assume with the upgrade program, Apple is paying the bank a service fee for each loan. This means that Apple is making less per phone, but that doesn't change the selling price.
My bank lends me money at 0% interest all the time - that's what happens when I charge things on my credit card and pay it off each month. Heck, I effectively make money on the deal because of the miles/cashback incentives.
No. There are plenty of reasons folks might want to finance regardless of their credit score. Cash management and the judicious use of credit are a key part of financial savvy. Don't generalize.
Thank you! I was intentionally trying to be funny.
Yep. Never said that. Just that people with high credit scores can generally pay cash but those who need the credit tend to have low scores and cannot get the credit.
My credit score isn't that high, yet I can pay cash for just about everything I need.
However, because my credit score isn't that high (mid-500s) the AUP is one of the best ways I can get that to the 700s within 6 - 8 month's time.
The assumption you are making is that low credit scores = unable to pay. That completely is not the case.
BL.
That's silly and makes assertions about credit that are unfounded and create unnecessary stereotypes.
Look at what this program is. It's designed to get a new iPhone into your hands every year. This isn't just about today's sale. It's about next year's sale, and the year after that, and ten years down the line. Apple wants you paying for your phone every year, and they want to make it easy. It's so easy. Give someone a 0% 24 month loan, let them pay it off each month. At month 12, they can trade it in for the new iPhone, but they start a whole new 24 month loan (having absolved them of the final 12 months of the previous loan). And then the year after that, same thing, and so on.
Now, in that time, what will people do with these phones? They'll buy apps for them. They'll buy accessories for them. Maybe they'll even buy other devices that Apple sells that are designed to integrate with these phones. The longer someone has an iPhone, the more money Apple will make from them. The more frequently someone upgrades to a new iPhone, the more Apple will make from them, as they're always increasing connectivity between devices. And so on.
Why would someone give you a 0% loan? Because they realize that they have so much more to gain than the mere interest on a 24 month loan. Apple wants to be the interface for your digital life. The iPhone is just one piece of that puzzle.
Sure, it's the same reason that Google is so interested in selling cheap hardware; they want you entrenched in their ecosystem. It's also why they've worked so hard to introduce Android in emerging markets, like India, with acceptable hardware at rock-bottom prices. They'll sell hardware at cost if not less because the real money is in the ecosystem.
Apple is a little bit different in this regard because they do rely on profits from hardware for their bottom line, but in this case they're getting users into their hardware ecosystem while getting back the used phones turned in for replacements, which are a lucrative little market of their own that carriers were about to monopolize with their own financing programs.
Yes, there's the added benefit for Apple of getting most of the phones back, another reason not to charge users extra for the AUP.
I actually work for a major wireless carrier and know that we do hard pulls for financing.
Did you not read about how I got a new CC within the past few months and that's why I don't want a hard inquiry. That was the whole point of my post?
The one common denominator to life well lived is be responsible build excellent credit and you'll always get the best interest rates and never be declined. It's the hallmark of smart finances.
I always just pay my bills on time and I don't worry about whether a hard pull is going to nick my credit for a month or so. I applied for a new credit card a couple of months ago (an $80 discount and hell yeah), and there's no hard pull on my record for that. Neither is there one for the phone I am getting on AT&T Next plan. The last hard pull is not quite a year ago when we replaced a card that stopped giving good bennies.
Whenever I look at those analyses of "how you can improve your score" it's always "you should have more accounts" and "but you should not use them."
Whenever I look at those analyses of "how you can improve your score" it's always "you should have more accounts" and "but you should not use them."
But they are right. Credit is the how people analyze your financial health and responsibility.